La Bête humaine

A truly different film, not like most films I have seen. Renoir blends comedy, drama, and one of the most jaw dropping scenes I have ever seen. Gabin is marvelous, as well as most of the cast (Renoir in a great cameo role). A really dark, and in some ways surreal picture, one that is way ahead of its time.

Semi-thrilling and somewhat interesting, but I didn't care about Jean Gabin that much. I bet the novel is better.

Renoir's adaptation of Emile Zola's novel feels very much like a precursor to American films noir with it's doomed, murderous characters, but is at the same time quite a bit darker and more romantic. Gabin and Simon are a compelling pair. Neither character is remotely likeable, but there's a dark charisma to both actors and you find yourself rooting for them in some fashion.

Very solid but feels a bit tired plot-wise at this point--might have been fresher at the time, though there are certain aspects and technical aspects that feel ahead of their time. Just very well done.

Renoir was not afraid to trade in moral ambiguity in a fairly direct way for his time, but the plot is perhaps too familiar now for its own good, although it develops with a deft economy that's customary for his work of the period. Admirers will certainly revel in the extended train scenes, which are wonderfully filmed, and Gabin is typically solid. Quality wise, it fits somewhere in the middle of Renoir's filmography.

I prefer Lang's remake, but in terms of understanding the debt the American film noir genre owes to the French Poetic Realism, this is one of the prototypes that needs to be seen.

Twist-ed!

Crazy that this was made in 1938. Extremely impressive on a technical level. The story and the way it's told is interesting too, with some very dark subject matter - something most reviews I've read seem to have missed is that while Grandmorin is referred to as her 'lover', it's implied throughout that he actually was a pedophile. The reason for many missing that is probably the movie being so tonally schizophrenic. Unsure if that's a flaw or strength, leaning toward the latter.

I really appreciated some of the photography on (and of) the train, but this has an odd tone throughout that feels disconnected. Gabin's Jacques, in particular, usually feels like he's in an entirely different movie from the rest of the actors, and his own struggles with desire and death seem a tenuous connection to the other events of the film.

85.00

Interesting noirish French film that's really about trains. There's a weird love triangle (with a few extra spokes) that doesn't feel realistic, combined with a certain amount of pessimism (or is it fatalism?). It doesn't age well with the repeated violence against women. But the photography of the trains, and the clear symbolism of them as the world passes these problems by, gives this a little push into the "better than average" category.

The Lang version is better. But it's also much more of what I like out of film. This one is definitely more romantic which makes the ending hit in a different way (still great!). The Lang film is about the oppression of love within capitalism and working class. this one is more of just a melodrama.

Here, Renoir melds his clear-eyed humanism to a genre form. This allows for moments of dreamy romanticism (Every shot of Gabin and Simon intertwined is gorgeous; Palpable physical attraction bleeds off the screen, but it's also something deeper than that) which melt into something more sinister without missing a beat. It becomes quite a tragedy, beautifully capturing the way Gabin moves through the world lost and misunderstood.

Star Rating: ★★★★1/2

Excellent direction, beautifully shot and an interesting tale.

A bit too anemic for my taste.

A fine piece of stylized realism about disillusionment, done with an embellished aestheticism that, while it draws more attention to its representational elements, is still what gave Renoir's great films Grand Illusion and The River such beauty, humor and vitality. It is best to see this film unfettered by Fritz Lang's later adaptation, to take into account all of the fixations of its own time and culture without any outside influences, to see it as its own (human) beast.

La bête humaine might not always be as intense as it could have been for such a grotesque story, but there is an eternal quality about it that shines so strong that makes it almost impossible to take ones eyes off. Simone Simon is back home in France after her mediocre career in Hollywood. For here in her native tongue she's beyond fantastic! Such a dangerous girl! And Jean Gabin has a dark side too. Visually Jean Renoir makes striking and authentic picture. A remarkable piece of movie making!

watched: 2012, 2016

#841

There are better Gabin-featured examples of Poetic Realism from the period, but this one's still worth a watch. Great final act.

It isn't really all that interesting until the last 40 minutes.

The romance progresses in a rather dull manner with some nice cinematic flair along the way. Suddenly amongst a seemingly average old French movie are these simply brilliant scenes on trains. I don't know what it was that captured me so much, but all the different angles of high-speed land motion were thrilling and fantastic. This powerful and plainly visceral reaction to what could be said to be a mildly ancillary aspect of the entire scope of the film was unexpected but not unwelcome.

Gabin is great, Simone Simon is super-cute and dangerous, and all the shots of trains are great. I like the Lang version a little better, but this is fine.

Fernand Ledoux looks like a French Michael Ironside.

By mixing elements of romance and jealousy, a femme fatale and a murder mystery, this is about as close as a poetic realist movie gets to Hollywood. It is recognizably a Jean Renoir, featuring elegant directing, dryly humorous small talk from Jean Gabin, and no particular aversion to lust and sex, but otherwise relatively underwhelming.

799

A corker of a thriller, laying many of the foundations of the film noir and featuring another top-drawer performance from Jean Gabin as well as Renoir at his most effortlessly brilliant. This movie, apart from being hugely enjoyable, has also given my life the purpose of building a time machine and going back to late thirties france to court and, shortly thereafter, commence a bout of excessively rough intercourse with one Simone Simon. Because damn.

This gloomy tale of liars, womanizers, and psychopaths seems uncharacteristically dark for the established reputation of its maker. But even about the criminal misgivings of dubious characters, it seems Jean Renoir was incapable of making an unsentimental film. It is self-reckoning, filled with grief and remorse, and in so fitting with his ever-sympathetic perspective. I do like Lang's version quite a bit better.

762

# 708

Seemed diffuse. Didn't really go anywhere.

Superb performance from Gabin. A few parts get a bit silly but on the whole it's quite riveting and enjoyable.