Maya (1949)
Directed by Raymond Bernard

Film Review

There's an indefinable aura of eastern mysticism to Maya that makes it one of Raymond Bernard's more intriguing and beguiling films.  Set in the claustrophobic environs of an old seaport that looks like a weird conflation of Marseille and Algiers, and filmed in the deliberately expressionistic manner of an American film noir of the 1940s, Maya has an oneiric poetry that sets it apart from every other French film of this period.  Taken from a 1924 play by Simon Gantillon, the plot feels like a hangover of 1930s poetic realism, with some scenes looking as if they have been lifted wholesale from Pépé-le-Moko - an impression that is reinforced by the presence of Fréhel in a virtually identical role to the one she had played in that film.  Yet, Raymond Bernard is far from being a slavish imitator of what has gone before.  Perhaps inspired by Jean Delannoy's L'Éternel retour (1943), he grasps the French noir aesthetic of the late 30s and gives it a warped Cocteau-eqsue twist, the result being his most idiosyncratic film, if not his bleakest.  Maya means 'illusion' apparently, and according to the creepy eastern mystic who keeps cropping up in the film (Valéry Inkijinoff no less) everything in life is an illusion.  Nothing is real.

The film was certainly a gift for Viviane Romance, as it gave her what is probably the greatest role of her career - the alluring and mysterious beauty of the night, Bella.  By this stage, Romance was firmly established as the "vamp par excellence" of French cinema, pretty well typecast as destructive femme fatales and scheming manipulators.  In Maya, she excels in her most enigmatic role, one that sees her transformed from the archetypal screen prostitute into a real woman by the redeeming power of love.  Never has the actress looked more beautiful nor more tragic than she does here, apparently free to love and leave whoever she chooses, but visibly trapped forever in a sordid milieu from which there is no possibility of escape.  It's a part that a Hollywood actress of the calibre of Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck would have killed to get, and Romance gives it everything she has, sparing us nothing.  A dark and profoundly unsettling eulogy to the mystical allure of the female sex, Maya is quite possibly Raymond Bernard's most inspired film.

Film Synopsis

When the cargo ship Saint-Jacques docks at a seaport, the crew waste no time going ashore to enjoy the distractions offered by the town.  As he wanders the streets after dark, one of the sailors, Jean, encounters an attractive prostitute, Bella, whom he mistakes for the one great love of his life.  On the run from the police after killing a man, a steward on another ship takes refuge in Bella's modest quarters.  Jean saves the man from certain arrest and then embarks on a romantic idyll with Bella.  Discovering true love for the first time, the prostitute is sure that Jean will offer her a new life, but tragically it is not to be.  Everything in life is a mere illusion...