Les Jeux sont faits (1947)
Directed by Jean Delannoy

Film Review

Is free will an illusion or do we really have the ability to shape our own destinies?  That is the question that the leading existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre poses in this, the first of his few contributions to cinema, which he subsequently made into a well-known novel. Anyone familiar with Sartre's work will know that he was of the view that we do have free will, and that this is the central curse of human existence.  In Les Jeux sont faits, Sartre argues that having the ability to make choices freely does not necessarily mean that we are free to decide what becomes of us.  The two main protagonists in the film choose to act in a way that seems rational to them but, to the spectactor, their behaviour appears totally perverse, as if they are merely actors in a scripted drama.  Given a second chance at life, they both slip into their earlier grooves and end up merely repeating what has already happened to them.  Pierre and Ève think they are free but in fact what happens to them the second time round is completely predictable.  Once the bets have been placed and the roulette wheel of fate has been set spinning, there is only one hole into which the ball can land.

After his successful collaboration with Jean Cocteau, another great thinker of the 20th century, on L'Éternel retour (1943), director Jean Delannoy was the natural choice to bring Jean-Paul Sartre's dark parable about free will to the big screen.  Delannoy may not have been an auteur in the Nouvelle Vague sense of the term (indeed this is what made him such an easy target for the young Turks on the Cahiers du cinéma), but he was a highly accomplished film director who was known to be sympathetic to the screenwriters he worked with and the authors whose work he adapted.  The similarity between the film Les Jeux sont faits and its identically titled novel is striking and suggests that Sartre was more than happy with Delannoy's treatment of his screenplay.  Certainly, the film is one of the most eloquent expressions of Sartre's theories about free will and the autonomy of the individual, and also the most accessible.

Les Jeux sont faits provides not only an easy introduction to existentialist philosophy, it is also a well-crafted piece of cinema in its own right, a good example of what the culturally insular reviewers on the Cahiers du cinéma would contemptuously label 'la tradition de qualité'. Serge Piménoff's elegant production design and Christian Matras's moody cinematography provide a subtle but effective demarcation between the realist and fantastic elements of the story.  There are no distracting transitions and the few special effects which the film employs are extremely effective.  The humour and poetry in Sartre's screenplay are skilfully rendered by Delannoy and the result is one of the director's most satisfying films.

Cast in the lead male role is Marcello Pagliero, a prominent Italian actor and director of the 1940s and '50s who was closely associated with the neo-realist movement.  This was his second screen appearance, after his memorable debut in Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945).  Pagliero was presumably chosen on account of his unpolished, working class persona, making him an effective contrast with his co-star, the supremely elegant Micheline Presle, who is just as well-cast for the role of a society heiress.  The chalk-and-cheese pairing of Pagliero and Presle works extraordinarily well - the evident class-separation of their characters accentuates the animalistic nature of their mutual attraction whilst providing the dramatic tension that gradually undermines their relationship.

The supporting cast includes some very distinguished performers, including Charles Dullin (in his penultimate film role), Marcel Mouloudji (who was soon to find fame as a popular singer) and Howard Vernon (shortly before his big break in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Silence de la mer).  The film's juiciest supporting role went to Marguerite Moreno, one of the great eccentrics of French cinema who, by this stage in her career, was often cast for her comedic talents.  Here, Moreno is magnificent as the clock-watching functionary who checks us all into the afterlife, dishing out suitably withering putdowns or sweet grandmotherly smiles, according to the way in which we quit the mortal sphere.  Les Jeux sont faits offers many delights, but Moreno's presence is the icing on the cake, an example of directorial free will at its most reckless and inspired.

Film Synopsis

Pierre Dumaine is the leader of a resistance movement in an unnamed police state.  He is preparing an insurrection when he is shot dead by an informer.  At the exact instant that Pierre dies, Ève Charlier is poisoned by her husband André Charlier, the chief of police, so that he can marry her sister.  Pierre and Ève meet in the afterlife, where they are condemned to roam the world they knew as ghosts, unable to change anything they see.  When they begin to fall in love, they are offered the chance to return to life for one day.  If, in that time, they can prove that they are committed to one another they will be allowed to remain and live a full life.  Unfortunately, once Pierre is back in the land of the living he cannot prevent himself from intervening to save his resistance friends, and Ève feels equally bound to warn her sister of her husband's wicked intentions...