Les Visiteurs du Soir
Released in 1942, directed by Marcel Carné
Les Visiteurs du Soir (literally The Night Visitors, but originally titled The Devil’s Envoys in the US) is deeply influenced by theatre, especially in the performances; lightly obedient to theatre’s limitations; and completely filmic in its desire to improve on reality. It is an early special effects bonanza – a summer blockbuster, although it came out in mid-winter – and it was one of the most popular films of its time and place.
Said time was 1942, and the place was Vichy France; but for all that it’s a film that came together relatively simply (politically speaking – logistically it was hell), and never risked censorship. French cinemas in fact were not awash in propaganda, although only French, German, and Italian films could be shown. The mandate was instead to be entertaining, a distraction. Moreover, Germany was eager to build up a captive French film industry, and Carné as a leading light was encouraged to work. He was already highly aesthetic (the first film he proposed to shoot during the occupation fell apart when the German doing oversight wouldn’t approve his choice of costume designer – Jean Cocteau); with Les Visiteurs he applied his taste to a stylized Renaissance fairytale of chastity, courtship, and demonology.
The story is split in two. The front half centers on Gilles (Alain Cluny) and Dominique (Arletty), agents of the Devil sent to spread misery. Their metaphysical status is slightly uncertain, but they appear to be humans who have signed away their souls for this or that; for cover they pose as minstrels, and with their glacial good looks and androgynous styling (Cuny’s physical presence is Boweiesque, and Dominique is posing as man) they feel a little eurotrash before the fact. Hard at work, they arrive at the castle of Baron Hugues (Fernand Ledoux) just in time for his daughter’s wedding - Anne (Marie Déa), all airy innocence, is bequeathed to Baron Renaud (Marcel Herrand), all icy swagger. Gilles and Dominique present themselves on the wedding’s eve, and at the ensuing ball freeze time – an effect done by having a huge host of actors stand absolutely still (I caught one blink) – so that they can draw away and seduce bride and groom, respectively. This all goes swiftly, with a menacing undercurrent. Before the ball Baron Hugues is presented with a trio of freaks for his amusement, and we are given a quick-cut glimpse of their deformed faces; it feels exploitative, and throughout the film there are touches of light sadism. As far as fairytales go we aren’t too far removed from the rough and tumble of the Brothers Grimm.
Spackled on top however is the frosting of a more courtly narrative. Gilles, who is meant to deceive Anne and ruin her, instead falls in love with her. His misstep triggers the film’s back half, which begins with the entry of the Devil himself (Jules Berry), come to reign in his servant. Berry and Arletty both came up through the theatre, but of the two Arletty is by far the more camera-adapted. She is a soft sell, murmuring through a knowing grin; you lean forward to pick up on her pitch. Berry on the other hand is very big – you can imagine watching him from the cheap seats and feeling catered to. His Devil is similar to modern interpretations of the Joker, a laughing nihilist (brief aside: why do nihilists laugh? Because laughter is a signal for the listener to discount the importance of what’s just happened – think of the laughter after a fall that looked bad, but wasn’t. Thus extensive, inappropriate laughter is a sign of general lack of import on the part of the world), and it’s interesting to compare Barry to Heath Ledger, who was all funny little angles and feints, whereas Barry just barrels right through with it. Yet his Devil is frightening, despite being a man in tights and a doublet; with his curlicue hand gestures, pop eyes, bad teeth, and stop/start avuncularity, Barry feels as if he’s accessing an older, more profane tradition than standard scenery chewing.
With the Devil in the picture the film becomes much bouncier, although still a bit gooey with the lugubriousness of its love plot. The Devil wants to punish Gilles for his disobedience, and contrives to have him locked away and tortured; Gilles maintains that since he has love in his life, he cannot be harmed. The idea of the saving power of romantic love has always felt underrated to me, in terms of its sophistication. It’s a radical manifestation of interiority – during wartime you can see the appeal. In the end, after a lot of roiling plot, Gilles and Anne are reunited, only for the Devil to turn them to stone. Nonetheless their hearts continue to beat – he hears them and this defeats him; the sufferings he can inflict on their bodies cannot touch their inner life. Although: at the same time Baron Hugues, who has fallen in love with the false-dealing Dominique, comes to what appears to be a grizzly end (offscreen – a death scene was filmed and not used (he falls off a cliff)); thus even when it comes to interior states, we seem to require at least one point of independent confirmation to call them valid.
The film’s effects are varied, from practical bits such as an infernal contract that bursts into flames, to a lot of cinematic trickery done with fades and jump cuts. These last are surprisingly powerful; there’s something elemental to them – a man is here and in a blink he’s gone – that gains in power from our knowledge of how far things will eventually go. There’s also cleverness in the simplicity – the film opens with pages being turned in a book; and the first few edits are done as wipes, mimicking the turning action. The film’s design – sets, costumes, accoutrements – feel as well like their own effect, and the amount of effort that went into them was extreme during wartime. There are several banquet scenes, and it was hard to source sufficient food for them (and when food was sourced the crew kept eating it; eventually it had to be publicly poisoned so that it would be left alone). The castle sets, built in Nice and beautiful arranged in pale blocky planes cut by narrow shadows, were originally done as mossy piles of rock – Carné pointed out that at the time period portrayed they would have been new, spick and span, and had them rebuilt.
The film’s best effect, however, is a neat looping little trick. The Devil magics a pool of water into a scrying glass, to show Gilles and Anne a duel between her father and her erstwhile fiancée. Footage of the duel plays out on screen, the water lapping over it; and when the fatal blow is struck a red stain appears in the water itself, leaking out from the wound. The film in the film has, for a moment, reached into the world in the film, and made a change.
