Rushfield Babylon

Criterion Caravan: #25 La Bete Humaine (1938) Dir: Jean Renoir

So we come in our journey through the Criterion catalog to 1938. Good ol’ France is still churning out thrillers, not daring to believe the darkness that is going to fall over it just two years down the line.  With 20/20 hindsight, one is tempted to say that accounts for the tense, almost hysterical attitude in Bete Humaine, but that is probably reading too much.

The production history on the wikipedia page for this film begins, “Jean Gabin wanted to star in a film about locomotives ” Frankly, that’s good enough for me.  Anytime Jean Gabin wants to make a train film, count me in. And frankly the first and last scenes of this film, which are just long minutes showing Gabin driving a train as it races down a track, communicating in signs with his fireman over the screech of the engine, are the best things about the film, and the best fast moving train footage I’ve ever seen.  Take your breath away they really do.

Unfortunately, I can’t say as much for the plot of this film. Renoir as always creates some incredibly taught scenes in which every shot tells you a novel’s worth of stories. But the characters in this are just a little too off-putting to take seriously, or to know how to read during the film. It tells of a triangle consisting of Gabin’s character, a good-natured engineer who now and then just has to do terrible things, a flirtatious young woman who eggs her lovers on to do terrible things, and her frumpy station master husband who is driven to terrible things by his need to control.  Lots of metaphors for the railway system!  So if railway system metaphors aren’t your cup of tea, stand clear.  

And in the midst of the tension between these fairly off-putting characters, it’s a bit of a weird muddle through it, everyone constantly on edge about to pop for reasons you can’t quite buy.

Jean Gabin also looks much puffier than he did in Pepe Le Moko, just a year before. Super-stardom is agreeing with him apparently, but while he remains a formidable screen presence, one misses that easy charm.

An interesting film. Plenty to look at but ultimately lesser than Renoir’s Grand Illusion. Come for the train driving scenes though. Those you will not forget.