Le Quai Des Brumes
It is a long way to Le Havre on the Normandy coast, its harbour a port to the wider world and escape from France, Jean hitching a lift along the dark and wet road through the fog; bitter and argumentative, he says he doesn’t want to talk to the driver but when provoked following a near-accident with a stray dog he lists his grudges, the dog the only one interested, following him on his way.
Arriving at Le Havre, Jean takes shelter at the Panama, a bar on the quay named for a vessel the owner once took to that destination, a memory of sunshine from half a world away from over thirty years before now represented by a ship in a bottle, Nelly in the backroom, hiding from her godfather Zubin, he himself pursued by Lucien and his henchmen, all of them looking for a way out or what they believe they are owed.
Adapted by Jacques Prévert from the 1927 novel of the same name by Pierre Mac Orlan and directed by Marcel Carné, Le Quai des Brumes, known in English as Port of Shadows but more correctly The Dock of Mists, when released on the cusp of the Second World War in 1938 it suffered issues with censorship and distribution but has since come to be regarded by some as a masterpiece of French cinema of the era.
Now resinstated from various sources to best represent the original version, it stars Jean Gabin as Jean, Michèle Morgan as Nelly, Michel Simon as Zabel and Pierre Brasseur as Lucien, all of them existing in a fog with no clear past and no future they can see, seeking escape but with no clear destination, Jean destined to never make the boat to Venezuela he has booked himself onto under the identity of a missing suicidal artist.
A Gallic Waiting for Godot, the dialogue is philosophical and contemplative rather than progressing the plot, the reasons Zabin is afraid of Lucien or the hold the gangster has over him never explained and Jean given to mournful monologues, while alcoholic Quart Vittel (Raymond Aimos) periodically pops up to beg a place to stay, convinced every scene is about him, Le Quai Des Brumes a place of ennui and melancholy where lost souls wash up from a sea of tears.
Restored in 4K using a combination of the film’s incomplete original negative and a standard nitrate fine grain for StudioCanal’s Vintage World Cinema collection, the new edition of Le Quai Des Brumes is supported by two extended discussions of the production of the film and its place in French film history and an introduction by Ginette Vincendeau, professor of film studies at King’s College London as well as an alternate credit sequence.
Le Quai Des Brumes will be available on DVD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 13th October
