#161 - Under The Roofs Of Paris

 

Ok....so Rene (sorry for the missing accent) Clair - a French film director who transitioned from Silent to Sound with this film.   We'll see him once more in the 600's but for now these are his 3 main works that he transitioned to sound with

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)
Le Million (1931)
A Nous la Liberte (1931)

It might have been nice to have seen them in chronological order but this is what we got - (2, 3, 1) so let's talk a bit about it.

This is his first sound production - it starts with singing and music, and this kind of makes sense to me because this film more than the others felt like it had a lot going on with no dialogue - whole minutes of just people moving with no talking - I'm guessing he was making the transition but still fell back on using the action to tell the story than the words.

It's a fun little romance - He uses the full height of his 4-5 story set sometimes, showing life in the tenements of Paris.   And like A Nous la Liberte, it's entertaining in a Charlie Chaplain way.   These are going to be some of the early masterpieces of French Cinema, and they've been slightly cut, as Rene went back to his films in the 50's and made some edits, but it didn't hurt the story to me at all.

Each film had a shorter, silent film by Clair attached to the DVD, but I didn't feel very motivated, TBH - not there for me. - was a bit of a struggle to get thru these as is.

I'm sure they were masterpieces for their day, but like many things, harder to really get into in the 21st century - glad I watched them but not overwhelmed or anything.   

It's essentially a will they/won't they get together romance with lots of comedic obstacles thrown in the path.   I'll leave it to you to see how it turns out.