LUMIERE D'ÉTÉ (1943)

In a mountain village in France near an active construction site where a dam is being built, Cri-Cri, a former ballerina, runs an isolated but gorgeous hotel called the Guardian Angel. Her lover Patrice, an aristocrat living in a mansion nearby, is getting tired of her clinginess but perks up when the young and lovely Michele arrives. She is meeting her lover Roland, an artist, who shows up a couple days later, melodramatically devastated by the failure of a show in Paris that he had designed. It's frustrating to see Michele passively acquiesce to Roland and his moody self-pitying fits, but we're not sure the attentions of Patrice are a good alternative for her. Then Julien, a young and handsome construction worker, shows up to complicate matters, sparking with Michele. Patrice offers Roland, who can't pay his hotel bill, a job and rooms at his mansion, obviously to keep Michele near him. The jealous Cri-Cri pushes Julien to "rescue" Michele from her two unsuitable suitors at the mansion. As Roland starts drinking and becomes more unbalanced, we discover that Patrice has killed someone in the past (accidentally, he claims but Cri-Cri knows better). Things build to a climax as all the characters gather when Patrice throws a huge masked ball at his mansion.  

Made by Jean Grémillon during the German occupation of France, this was widely interpreted as an attack on both the Nazis and the decadent French upper class and was quickly pulled from circulation. Separated from its original context, it holds up very well as both compelling melodrama—albeit with an admirably light touch—and social satire. The acting is fine all around: Madeleine Renaud is nicely but not overly world-weary as Cri-Cri, Paul Bernard is a perfect decadent ass as Patrice, Madeleine Robinson plays Michele as sometimes innocent and sometimes experienced, and Georges Marchal (pictured with Robinson) is charming and attractive as Julien. Pierre Brasseur (Roland) suffers the most by seeming like a symbol rather than a fleshed-out character—his defining line, delivered to Michele, is "Of course I love you, but I prefer myself"—but the other members of the romantic quadrangle feel real. The three main settings (the hotel, the mansion and the dam site) are grand. Some reviews refer to the Guardian Angel as a shimmering glass hotel, but that's not quite right. It’s a traditional building but with a long glass-enclosed eating area which is indeed shimmering and provides a lovely background for most of the hotel scenes. Despite all the romantic drama, the film has a generally light feel, due in part to some comic relief side characters. Recommended. Aka SUMMER LIGHT. [DVD]