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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: French ( Mono ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Francois, a sympathetic factory worker, kills Valentin with a gun. He locked himself in his furnished room and starts remembering how he was led to murder. He met once Francoise, a young fleurist, and they fell in love. But Francoise was gotten round by Valentin, a dog trainer, a machiavellian guy... ...Daybreak ( Le Jour se lève )
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"Le Jour Se Leve," ("Daybreak") (1939), a bleak black and white crime drama, romance/thriller, is considered one of the great classics of the French cinema. It was directed by the legendary Marcel Carne (Les Enfants Du Paradis [DVD] [1945] (THE CHILDREN OF PARADISE); the original story was by the respected Jacques Viot; the script, by Jacques Prevert, with whom the greatest of French directors often worked.
It stars the incomparable Jean Gabin (La Grande Illusion - Special Edition [DVD] [1937]) as foundry worker Francois, who kills the sleazy, sadistic, womanizing dog act performer Valentin (Jules Berry) to help the young florist he loves, Francoise, escape from Valentin's clutches. Francois then retreats to his furnished room, reflecting on the events that drove him to murder, including his unromantic sexual affair with Valentin's former stage assistant, Clara, played by the ever-beauteous Arletty(Les Enfants Du Paradis [DVD] [1945]), as he waits for the police to renew their assault on him at daybreak.
Well, in outline, it does sound bleak, doesn't it, and the material is. Yet, such is the magic of Carne's vision, and Gabin's muscular acting, that it is not tedious, though you might expect it would be. Much of the tale is told in flashback, as Carne delivers a film of great lyrical beauty, widely considered a monument to the French between-the-wars film school of "poetic realism," though a lot of it looks more like German Expressionism to me. It gives us a very accurate portrait of working class life as it was lived at the time: Gabin as Francois humorously delivers several lines on the unhealthiness of the various factory environments in which he has worked: he knows very well that they kill their employees. And Gabin was certainly one of the cinema world's greatest working class anti-heroes. He had just played one for Carne in the previous year on Port of Shadows (Le Quai des brumes) [All Region] [import] another bleak film, though not quite as bleak as this one, and it's even more famous than this one, then and now. Who was Gabin, if you don't know? Of real Parisian working class origins, French cinema's precursor to Humphrey Bogart (although Bogart was of more patrician family), Gabin played the quintessential soft-hearted tough guy in many movies, perhaps his best-known today being the series of films made of Simenon's Inspector Maigret books. A stunning film, 93 minutes long, and not a second wasted.
It stars the incomparable Jean Gabin (La Grande Illusion - Special Edition [DVD] [1937]) as foundry worker Francois, who kills the sleazy, sadistic, womanizing dog act performer Valentin (Jules Berry) to help the young florist he loves, Francoise, escape from Valentin's clutches. Francois then retreats to his furnished room, reflecting on the events that drove him to murder, including his unromantic sexual affair with Valentin's former stage assistant, Clara, played by the ever-beauteous Arletty(Les Enfants Du Paradis [DVD] [1945]), as he waits for the police to renew their assault on him at daybreak.
Well, in outline, it does sound bleak, doesn't it, and the material is. Yet, such is the magic of Carne's vision, and Gabin's muscular acting, that it is not tedious, though you might expect it would be. Much of the tale is told in flashback, as Carne delivers a film of great lyrical beauty, widely considered a monument to the French between-the-wars film school of "poetic realism," though a lot of it looks more like German Expressionism to me. It gives us a very accurate portrait of working class life as it was lived at the time: Gabin as Francois humorously delivers several lines on the unhealthiness of the various factory environments in which he has worked: he knows very well that they kill their employees. And Gabin was certainly one of the cinema world's greatest working class anti-heroes. He had just played one for Carne in the previous year on Port of Shadows (Le Quai des brumes) [All Region] [import] another bleak film, though not quite as bleak as this one, and it's even more famous than this one, then and now. Who was Gabin, if you don't know? Of real Parisian working class origins, French cinema's precursor to Humphrey Bogart (although Bogart was of more patrician family), Gabin played the quintessential soft-hearted tough guy in many movies, perhaps his best-known today being the series of films made of Simenon's Inspector Maigret books. A stunning film, 93 minutes long, and not a second wasted.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
No disagreement with the reviews already listed about the high quaiity of this film. But be warned that the Optimum World DVD transfer is not very good. Picture is grainy and muddy in many places. One reviewer says that the Criterion print is good. I haven't seen it, but it ought to be better than this one.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are certain films (Pepe le Moko, the Marius trilogy, Le Crime du M. Lange, Le Quai des Brumes) that could only have been made at a certain time and in a certain place - France in the 1930's. "Jour" is one of them. It has all the ingredients that made certain French films of the epoch so very special - breathtakingly beautiful photography, a deceptively simple plot, wonderful acting and that particular cinematic flair, made up of an admixture of elements such as filmic elan, note-perfect acting and understated scripting, that only the French were capable of, and which no-one has even come close to since.
The plot, on the face of it, is simple. Man shoots other man for unknown reasons and then waits, holed up in a bedsit, for the Police to come at daybreak and seal his fate. He reviews the events that have led to this impasse. As in all the best films, things aren't what they initially appear to be, and the actions, feelings and motivations of the various characters unfold as the film progresses, sometimes quite surprisingly.
Jean Gabin puts in what is arguably his finest performance. Jules Berry is a suitably lubricious and plausible villain, while Arletty is spot-on as the world-weary woman who's been round the block of life a few times too many.
If you're unacquainted with the magic of French films of this period and want to give it a try, you won't go far wrong with this one.
Sublime.
The plot, on the face of it, is simple. Man shoots other man for unknown reasons and then waits, holed up in a bedsit, for the Police to come at daybreak and seal his fate. He reviews the events that have led to this impasse. As in all the best films, things aren't what they initially appear to be, and the actions, feelings and motivations of the various characters unfold as the film progresses, sometimes quite surprisingly.
Jean Gabin puts in what is arguably his finest performance. Jules Berry is a suitably lubricious and plausible villain, while Arletty is spot-on as the world-weary woman who's been round the block of life a few times too many.
If you're unacquainted with the magic of French films of this period and want to give it a try, you won't go far wrong with this one.
Sublime.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Classic French Realist/Noir Drama
Marcel Carne's 1939 film Le Jour Se Leve (or Daybreak in English) is a classic, claustrophobic drama, and is as bleak as his Les Enfants du Paradis is uplifting. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Keith M
Le Jour se leve
I enjoy French films and and was looking to renew my acquaintance with films that as a teenager or young adult I had seen or heard about. Le jour se leve does not disappoint. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Gerardoux
Excellent film! Excellent print
This is a perfect example of the French pre war noir style film that influenced so much of Hollywood's output post WW2. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2010 by D. A. Roylance
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