Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche (1929)
Directed by Marcel Carné

Film Review

Marcel Carné's all-consuming love affair with cinema began many years before he directed his first feature film.  Like many youngsters from his working class milieu, cinema offered an easy escape, although he kept his rampant cinephilia from his father, who had long decided that he would follow him in his profession as a carpenter.  By the time Carné came to direct his first full-length film Jenny (1936), he had had a long and vigorous apprenticeship, working as an assistant to such illustrious filmmakers as Jacques Feyder, René Clair and Richard Oswald.  He had also made a number of advertising films (to be screened in cinemas before the features) with Jean Aurenche and Paul Grimault, and had had some success as a critic, writing regularly for popular film magazines such as Cinémonde, Hebdo-Film, Vu and Film-Sonore.  It was with an impressive documentary short entitled Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche (1929) that Marcel Carné first realised his dream of making his own film at the age of 22.  Running to just 18 minutes, this enchanting gem of a film was shot over a period of several weeks on a small portable camera which he bought (at a cost of 4000 francs) with money given to him by a friend, Michel Sanvoisin.

The camera was in fact so rudimentary that it could only record up to six seconds of footage at a time, but Carné's ingenuity in both the filming and editing of the shots was such that you would hardly notice this fact.  Carné's skilful and often spectacularly daring use of camera motion - pans and tracking shots of various speeds and durations - is meticulously choreographed with motion (of people and objects) within the frame, the result being a beguiling ballet of images that cohere into a piece of film art of exceptional unity and fluidity.  Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche isn't just an incredibly valuable social document, recording how ordinary Parisians enjoyed their leisure time on the banks of the River Marne in that halcyon age between the wars.  It also contains the seeds of Carné's future work as a professional film director, in particular his intense and unceasing involvement with the working class people with whom he most identified and who would occupy a central part in his oeuvre.  Unlike some other directors of his generation (notably Jean Renoir), Carné never gave up on his proletarian ideals, although this would make him an easy target for his right-leaning detractors who did their damnedest to portray him as out of touch during France's heady period of embourgeoisement in the two decades following WWII.

Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche was first screened at the Studio des Ursulines in Paris in March 1929 and had a crucial impact on Marcel Carné's early career.  On seeing it, René Clair (one of the leading lights of the Parisian Avant-Garde) was so impressed that he immediately engaged Carné to work as an assistant on his first sound film Sous les toits de Paris (1930).  This then led to Carné assisting on some of Jacques Feyder's finest films - Le Grand jeu (1934), Pension Mimosas (1935) and La Kermesse héroïque (1935) - on the strength of which Feyder gave him his first opportunity to direct a commercial feature.  By this time, Carné's debut short had completely disappeared from sight and only resurfaced in the late 1960s, when its author gifted the only copy he had to the French cultural magazine L'Avant-Scène Cinéma.  Against Carné's express wishes, the film was provided with a score composed by Bernard Gérard, and it is in this form that it can be readily viewed today on a number of internet websites.

Like Jean Vigo's À propos de Nice (1930), another remarkable debut film from a filmmaker destined to become a legend, Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche is an incredibly impactful piece of sur le vif film art that leaves no doubt as to the outstanding genius and humanity of its author.  Carné and Vigo were just two of a 'new wave' of 20-something wannabe film directors that surfaced in France in the late 1920s and 1930s at a time when the film industry was reeling under the challenge of the transition to synchronised sound (others include Pierre Chenal, Georges Lacombe and Jean Dréville).  Their instinctive, more realist approach - the authenticity of which was attested by the use of small handheld cameras, exclusively outdoor settings and crude editing techniques - was quite different to the polished intellectual experimentalism of the Avant-Garde impressionist movement (Marcel L'Herbier, Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Jean Epstein, Germaine Dulac, René Clair) which had virtually run its course by the mid-1920s and ended altogether with the advent of sound.  It also ran counter to another trend, that of 'filmed theatre', which came to the fore with the arrival of sound thanks (mainly) to the efforts of Marcel Pagnol and Sacha Guitry.  Carné's short film is a particularly fine example of this and prefigures not only his own distinctive poetic realist style of the 1930s but also Italian neo-realism (which actually had its origins in French cinema, via such films as Jean Renoir's Toni (1935) and Les Bas-fonds (1936)).

At first sight, Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche appears to be startlingly different from the doom-laden atmospheric melodramas that Carné would go on to make in the mid-to-late 1930s - Le Quai des brumes (1938), Hôtel du Nord (1938), Le Jour se lève (1939).  With its sunny depiction of ordinary Parisian folk making the most of their one free day in the most idyllic of settings (a semi-rural backwater just ten kilometres to the east of the heart of the capital). it immediately calls to mind Robert Siodmak's Menschen am Sonntag (1930), a similar (more widely seen) depiction of the hoi polloi happily enjoying their Sunday freedom.  The peaceful riverside setting and intoxicating sense of joie de vivre that Carné captures so effectively evoke Jean Renoir's Partie de campagne (1936) (which appears to owe a great deal to Carné's film), whilst the director's almost obsessive glorification of the sporting prowess of his fellow countrymen has some obvious common ground with Leni Riefenstahl's German propagnda piece Olympia (1938).  (It's a perilously small step from nationalistic pride to Fascistic fervour, as Carné would find in his subsequent row with Jean Renoir over Le Quai des brumes).

One of the most striking aspects of Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche is that it presents what the ill-fated protagonists of Carné's 1930s films are always denied - an escape to paradise, albeit one offering simple pleasures in a little verdant oasis on the edge of the concrete prison that is Paris. (Ironically, even this little glimpse of Eden would soon be obliterated with the rise of the private motor car and the inevitable urban sprawl this would lead to).  Look closely, and you may just catch a fleeting glimpse of the unhappy souls that inhabit Carné's grimmer films - a dejected young man sitting alone in a busy dance hall, a solitary young woman heading back home after having spent the entire day collecting wildflowers alone, a blind accordionist left playing in a deserted street, seemingly unaware that no one can hear his music (just one example of the wry humour that Carné periodically shows in the film).  These unfortunates are scarcely noticed (and perhaps they may not be seen at all on a single viewing of the film), as they are vastly outnumbered by the hoards of happier-looking individuals who appear to be in their seventh heaven, luxuriating in the delights of a day of unbounded freedom.  It is the joy of the masses that the film revels in.  The private grief of individuals is scarcely discernable - but it is still there, for those who are sensitive enough to notice it.

It is through some remarkable point-of-view shots that the film is most effective at allowing the spectator to become totally caught up in the hedonistic exhilaration of the men and women shown on the screen.  The best and most vertiginous example is the shot where the camera loops through 180 degrees as a man on a swing projects himself as high into the air as he can go.  With its dramatic montage of fast-moving train shots inter-cut with static images of deserted city boulevards, the opening few minutes of the film capture the excitement and anticipation of the masses as they flee the capital, leaving it looking eerily abandoned and forlorn.  Carné's main concern appears to be in presenting the working class as the absolute pinnacle of French society, particularly the working class man, whose physical prowess the film repeatedly underlines with striking images that glorify the male physique.  Close-up shots of lean, well-muscled rowers (presumably filmed with Carné sitting opposite them in the boat) and long shots taken from various angles of divers and acrobats flying through the air present the young adult male as an object worthy of idolatry, the body worshipping sentiment charged with the same unadorned homoeroticism that surfaces in Carné's most blatant celebration of le beau corps masculin, L'Air de Paris (1954).

Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche stands apart in Marcel Carné's remarkable oeuvre as one of just two documentaries he made (the other being La Bible (1977), a commission for French television which he reluctantly accepted at the end of his career).  Yet it is an essential part of his work, anticipating not only his life-long commitment to realist populist cinema but also his intensely humanist affiliation with the working classes.  The lives of the rich and famous, the great men and woman of history, had no interest for Marcel Carné.  All that mattered to him was ordinary people coping as best they can with the challenges of everyday life.  If authenticity is the defining quality of his work, this quality can be found in abundance in Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche, the film in which Carné committed himself to capturing on celluloid the world he knew best and to which he would remain faithful to the end of his days.

Film Synopsis

It is a fine Sunday morning and already the exodus has begun - from the oppressively dreary streets of Paris to the leafy riverside suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne.  They come by train, by automobile, by bicycle and on foot - the hundreds of smiling, well-dressed Parisians intent on making the most of their one, eagerly awaited day of leisure.  Some are content to spend the day in idle pursuits - gathering wildflowers or dozing peacefully in the meadows, drinking among friends in a crowded guinguette or simply sitting by the river, fishing or watching the rowing boats zip past in endless succession.  The more energetic can be seen showing off their physical prowess in a wide range of sporting activities that include diving, swimming, boating and acrobatic displays.  Others burn up their excess calories and animal aggression on various fairground amusements, taking their thrills on numerous swings, slides and seesaws.  The romantically inclined may prefer to spend an hour or two in the arms of a loved one in a genteel dancehall, dancing cheek-to-cheek to the strains of a small band of musicians.  Meanwhile, two love-hungry bachelors take advantage of their day's freedom to prowl the riverside paths in search of their perfect soul mates - with apparent success.  All too soon, the sun's revitalising power begins to wane and as afternoon slips into evening the weary but contented day-trippers start to head back into town.  A feeling of sadness descends on this semi-rural paradise as the last stragglers drift away, tired but better able to face the week of drudgery that lies ahead.  A lone blind accordionist continues playing his instrument, as if unaware of the day's passing.