Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947)

Immensely charming, witty and well-observed, Jacques Becker turned a stylistic corner with this ‘pink-collar’ working-class dramedy in a still-recovering post-war Paris. A tale of young love for a struggling, but basically happy couple (the well-matched Roger Pigaut & Claire Mafféi). Him: working at a book manufacturer (operating a rather terrifying page trimmer, watch those fingers!)/Her: clerking at a discount department store under an officious floor manager. On a tight budget & even tighter space in a walk-up flat, with nosy neighbors & slow receding wartime rationing, the opening three reels are a marvel of habit & humor, technically pacey & fluid as it introduces neighborhood & characters, hopes & dreams with near Neo-Realistic clarity. The main story arc involves a persistent, lecherous middle-aged grocer, favoring customers who favor him and using hard-to-get tinned sardines as calling cards for pretty young employees ‘with benefits.’ Antoine, jealous of the attention & general flirting aimed at his wife (she hardly gives it a thought) thinks things will turn around when they hit the lottery for 800,000 Francs. . . . then misplaces the ticket. Becker loses a bit of the magical atmosphere he’s built up with this conventional whimsy (imagine De Sica’s Bicycle Thief losing a lotto stub instead of his bike), but even if this is Neo-Realism Lite, Antoine’s desperation remains heartbreakingly real, cleverly structured and loaded with character revelations neatly resolved. A priceless look at a brief, forgotten era in Paris, with people to treasure, real locations (only the very last shot faked); an altogether irresistible package.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Becker shows particular flair in his use of background & diegetic music. Note the relentlessly rising keys as a piano is methodically tuned behind Antoine at the lottery board, shadowing his growing panic. And the fugue that breaks out when he heads to the park to grieve among statues & fountains. (GIGI’s Gaston does much the same in the Vincente Minnelli musical.) Or a young unhappy bride at a wedding Antoine’s crashed singing the Gounod/FAUST aria ‘The King of Thulé’ at the piano in an untrained voice.

DOUBLE-BILL: Becker was moving into his best period, topped by his classic CASQUE D’OR/’52.

No comments: