Trois chambres à Manhattan (1965)
Directed by Marcel Carné

Film Review

Whilst it may be a widely held view, it is a fallacy that Marcel Carné made no interesting films after his inspired Zola adaptation Thérèse Raquin (1953).  It is true that none of the films that the director made towards the end of his career match the excellence of his earlier achievements, flawless masterpieces such as Le Quai des brumes (1938), Le Jour se lève (1939) and Les Enfants du paradis (1945), but, in spite of the regular mauling he received from the critics who judged him to be too academic and démodé, Carné continued making socially relevant and stylish films right up until the end.  One of the most underrated films of his late period is Trois chambres à Manhattan (a.k.a. Three Rooms in Manhattan), a haunting evocation of solitude in the big city.  Carné wrote the screenplay, adapted from a Georges Simenon novel, in collaboration with Jacques Sigurd, who had previously scripted some of Yves Allégret's bleakest and most atmospheric films, including Une si jolie petite plage (1949) and Manèges (1950).

From the film's title, you would have thought that Jean-Pierre Melville would have been the natural choice to direct it.  Indeed, Melville had been producer Charles Lumbroso's first choice, but he turned down the offer so that he could make Le Deuxième souffle instead.  Carné appears to have taken his inspiration from Melville's earlier film, Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959) - both films make effective use of their New York location and both are drenched in melancholic introspection, the neon-lit urban landscape and moody jazz soundtrack adding a harrowing sense of alienation and yearning.  The legendary cinematographer Eugen Schuftan, who had previously worked wonders on Carné's Drôle de drame (1937) and Le Quai des brumes (1938), turns in some of his finest work on this film, creating an ambiance of unquenchable longing and stifling loneliness, of the kind you can only really feel when you are alone in a throbbing alien metropolis like New York City.

As the washed-up middle-aged man teetering on the edge of the abyss, Maurice Ronet offers a near-reprise of his role in Louis Malle's Le Feu follet (1963), although the actor is so perfectly suited for the part that you can hardly reproach Carné for offering it to him.  Here, Ronet is superbly partnered with a comparable acting talent, Annie Girardot, who had recently become a major star of French cinema through her substantial role in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960).  Even though the film was generally ill-received at the time, Girardot won almost unanimous praise for her performance and was rewarded with the Best Actress award at the 1965 Venice Film Festival.  Alongside the abject fragility of Ronet's character, Girardot seems to epitomise the strong modern woman, and yet as her character's own personal crises begin to emerge, we see that she is every bit as vulnerable, a woman who seems fated never to escape from her shameful past, never to connect with the one man who might be able to set her free.  Whilst Carné's mise-en-scène isn't quite as sharp as in other films he made around this time - indeed, it often looks complacent compared with the flair and rigour shown on Les Tricheurs (1958) and Terrain vague (1960) - exceptional performances from Ronet and Giradot help to make Trois chambres à Manhattan one of the most compelling and humane films of the director's post-war period.  Watch very carefully and you may just spot another distinguished actor in the film - 22-year-old Robert de Niro, making his screen debut in a walk-on part.  It's a small world.

Film Synopsis

François Combe is an actor whose hopes of becoming a big star in Hollywood are dashed within a very short time of his arrival in America.  Now he has to content himself with routine work for a television company in New York, and he wonders why he left France in the first place.  It was the heartache of a relationship breakdown that drove him into exile, and now he finds himself in the Big Apple - alone, disillusioned and uncertain as to what the future holds for him.  Then Kay Larsi enters his life.

They first meet in an anonymous bar during one of François's customary nocturnal wanderings around the city.  Kay is about his age - mid to late thirties - and seems to be just as rudderless as he is after parting company with her flatmate, Jessie.  François and Kay find they have much in common and as they get to know one other they take comfort in each other's company.  They share a room in a hotel for a while, and then, convinced the relationship is going somewhere, Kay agrees to move into François's apartment.

It is then that Kay feels able to talk about her past.  She is not, as she has so far pretended to be, the wife of a diplomat.  In fact, she is married to a rich Italian count who gave her nothing but a life of intolerable boredom.  In the end, she had to run away, leaving her husband and son behind as she pursued a meaningless liaison with a gigolo.  These revelations come as a surprise to François, who begins to have second thoughts about the relationship.  A separation is forced on them when Kay decides to visit her sick daughter in Mexico.  Taking the advice of a producer friend, François allows himself to be tempted by a seductive actress...