Douce (1943)
Directed by Claude Autant-Lara

Film Review

One of the film directors to earn distinction whilst France was under Nazi Occupation was Claude Autant-Lara, a former set and costume designer who, after a long and difficult apprenticeship, finally found recognition with a string of high class melodrama in the 1940s.  Although Autant-Lara's reputation was tarnished by certain critics in the 1950s and 60s, much of his work exemplifies the best of the quality tradition in French cinema.  Of the films that Autant-Lara made during the Occupation, the one that has stood the test of time best is Douce, the director's most perfectly crafted film and his most virulent critique of the haute bourgeoisie.  Although the story is set in the 19th Century, the film is obviously intended as an attack on the social divisions that prevailed in France in the 1940s, divisions which were somewhat exacerbated by the Occupation.

Not only was Autant-Lara one of the most accomplished filmmakers of his generation, consistently delivering films of exceptional visual and emotional power, he was also one of the most subversive.  In many of his films, he forcefully conveys his deep-seated antipathy for the supposed bulwarks of French society.  Douce is a good illustrations of this - a no holds barred assault on class distinction.   The film opens with a sequence which makes the Church (another of the director's bêtes noires) complicit in the bourgeois notion that the classes should be kept apart.  In the scene that follow, the class roles are reversed (Irène initially appears to be Douce's social superior), although this turns out to be a ploy (to establish that Irène is a social climber and identify Douce as someone who plans to marry beneath her).  After this sleight of hand, the class barriers come slamming down and we know exactly to which social stratum the characters belong.  It is as if there is a fundamental law of nature that prevents the different castes from mixing.  Given that Autant-Lara was ill-disposed towards the Occupation (he refused to work for Continental, the German run company that dominated French cinema at the time), it is tempting to read into the film a subtle condemnation of the Nazis' obsession with racial purity.

Perhaps the most important character in Douce is the grand house within which most of the action takes place.  This setting doesn't only reveal the material gulf that exists between the two classes that inhabit it, the masters and their servants, it also provides a stifling sense of confinement, a sense of the immutability of one's own place in society.  The characters are defined less by what they say and more by how they relate to this setting, the camera angles revealing the shifting hierarchy within the household.  In several shots, the characters are seen through doors or windows, and so it becomes clear that what we thought was their home is in fact a prison, one that becomes increasingly claustrophobic as the social divide become more evident.  There are no free individuals in this world - everyone is a prisoner, a stereotype who must adhere to the social conventions or else pay the price (death or banishment).  Again, the fact that Douce was made under the Occupation may have given this impression a greater resonance.

Although Douce excels in many areas (Philippe Agostini's cinematography adds to both the beauty of the film's visual composition and its intensely oppressive mood), its real power derives from the script.  This was supplied by one of French cinema's most successful writing teams, Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, their second collaboration after the Fernandel comedy L'Héritier des Mondésir (1940).   In lesser hands, Michel Davet's novel could have ended up as a trite melodrama.  Instead, Aurenche and Bost make it into a complex study in thwarted ambition and desire, with well-rounded characters whose motives are not immediately discernible and an intricate plot that easily holds our attention.  The dramatic tension is periodically lightened by a generous helping of the writers' famous dark humour - notice the cheeky references to Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses and the not very subtle variation on the "Let them eat cake" saying.   After this sterling effort, Aurenche and Bost would work with Autant-Lara on many of his subsequent films, including such memorable classics as Le Diable au corps (1947), L'Auberge rouge (1951), Le Rouge et le noir (1954) and La Traversée de Paris (1956).

Heading a distinguished cast is Odette Joyeux, who had previously starred in Autant-Lara's Le Mariage de Chiffon (1942) and Lettres d'amour (1942).  As the ill-fated Douce, Joyeux gives what is probably the finest performance in her short career, her gamine persona lending her a tragic vulnerability that makes her the film's most sympathetic character.   Providing a perfect contrast with Joyeux's innocent and impulsive Douce is Madeleine Robinson's calculating social climber Irène - both characters are convincingly played as victims of a cruel social structure that inhibits them and prevents them from fulfilling their dreams.  Note that whilst Douce and Irène actively fight against the system that holds them in check, their male counterparts, the Count de Bonafé and his estate manager Fabien, look like passive bystanders, not merely powerless to change the status quo, but also seemingly reluctant to do so.  It is interesting that in many of Autant-Lara's films the female characters tend to be the strongest and more proactive, whilst the men are often weak or lacking in moral conviction.  An extreme example of this in Douce is the elderly harridan Madame de Bonafé, superbly portrayed by Marguerite Moreno at her feistiest.  Looking like Cerberus guarding the gates to the haute bourgeoisie, Moreno's character is a patronising ogress that epitomises the cancerous social divide which Autant-Lara riled against in his films.  The film's pessimistic ending shows the folly of class prejudice but offers little hope that things will ever change for the better.  Cerberus is too well-fed, égalité the one luxury the rich cannot afford.

Film Synopsis

Paris, 1887.  Engelbert de Bonafé is a wealthy man who lives in a splendid house with his hard-to-please mother, the Countess de Bonafé, and his 17-year-old daughter Douce, whose name reflects her gentle personality.  Unbeknown to her over-attentive father, Douce is hopelessly infatuated with his handsome steward, Fabien Marani, and dreams of eloping with him to get married.  Unfortunately, it is not the childish Douce that Fabien loves but the girl's private tutor, Irène.  The latter owes her present position to Fabien, and he hopes that she will repay his kindness one day by accompanying him to North America to begin a new life.  Irène has her own plans, however.

A determined social climber, Irène offers no resistance when Monsieur de Bonafé begins making romantic overtures towards her.  Now that she looks set to marry into wealth, she can afford to spurn her devoted Fabien.  Rejected by his one true love, Fabien becomes easy prey for the persistently enamoured Douce, who promises to give up everything so that she can become his wife.  Aware that by marrying Douce he will be inflicting a just chastisement on his employer for robbing him of his sweetheart, Fabien consents and the two are soon planning a new life together in a distant land.  They might have lived happily ever after if Fate hadn't been so cruel as to intervene, delivering a blow that will shortly ruin the lives of everyone in the de Bonafé household...