LA TRAVERSEE DE PARIS

La Traversée de Paris is a film Franco-Italian, realized by Claude Autant-Lara, release in 1956.

♦ Synopsis :

In 1943 in Paris, during the German occupation, Martin is a taxi driver to the unemployment which earns its living by delivering parcels for black market. The evening even, it must transport to foot four bags containing a cut out pig to the other end of the capital. It goes in the cellar of one named Jambier and y plays of the accordion while the animal is cut the throat of. This made, it moves with his Mariette wife towards the restaurant where it must find its accomplice. It learns there that this one has been just stopped by the police force. An unknown enters the restaurant then and, on a misunderstanding, fearing that it slipped an appointment with his wife, Martin invites it to share his meal and to work with him. This choice quickly proves calamitous, because this new character, certain Grandgil, is far from being flexible. It first of all grants a substantial wage increase by terrorizing unhappy Jambier. Then, it destroys the bottles of a bar where the two accomplices took refuge police force and treats the tenants of “bastards of the poor”. It goes even until striking a police officer in the district where Martin lives. And when, fleeing a German patrol, they end up taking refuge in the apartment of Grandgil, it is with amazement that Martin, discovers that it is about a painter of a certain fame which followed it only to be distracted. Prosecutor nevertheless their way, they arrive finally at the address of the delivery but find the door closed. They produce such a din then that the police force intervenes. In Kommandantur where they are taken along, a German officer recognizes the Grandgil painter. It is on the point of making them slacken when the assassination of a colonel is announced. The German officer does not manage to save in extremis that Grandgil tandis that Martin, him, share in deportation. The years pass, Paris is released, and we find Grandgil on a station platform of Lyon followed by a carrier of bags. Top of the window of the coach, Grandgil recognizes bearing Martin suddenly, like always, the bags of the others.

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♦ Comments :

Claude Autant-Lara deploys all his insolence and his taste for the provocation in this joke caustic and squeaking having for historical framework the German occupation. Two accomplices that all opposes, the character and the social position, cross Paris the night to deliver a pig to black market. On this fragile argument, a series of adventures and a gallery of portraits develop which constitute a denunciation of through darkest one time at the same time as a virulent social criticism.
The two superstars which are Bourvil and Jean Gabin give to it with liveliness the counterpart while beside them, some Louis de Funès, finds one of its first great roles.
It is probably about the masterpiece of Claude Autant-Lara and, in an any state of cause of great classic of French cinema.

An initiatory course:

The crossing of Paris east without any doubt an initiatory course. Grandgil painter whose talent is temporarily suspended because of the war distracts and trains by the provocation Marcel Martin a taxi driver to the introverted unemployment which for lack of insurance is let handle by its environment.
This long walk of night through the districts of Paris which succeeds the anthological scene of the bargaining of the transport of the bags will make it possible Grandjil to expose to Martin for concrete examples the limits of the human race. The scene of the coffee where Grandjil is released in company of Martin temporarily released of its prejudices is a perfect example of this verbal overflow and physics which one can condemn.
Martin is hustled by outrageous extravagances of Grandjil. It is caught with the play power which represents this disillusioned painter who has fun to destabilize his contemporaries that it considers weak and without scales by sour remarks.

This advance in Paris especially in its conclusion however will position Grangil in a responsible role where it will have to show of wisdom and reflexion to save the life of his comrade.

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♦ Quotations :

" Mister Jambier, 45 street Poliveau, for me, it will be 1000 F... Mister Jambier, 45 street Poliveau, maintaining it is 2000 F... I wanted to say 3000.
— It is serious ?
— How if it is serieux  !...JAMBLIER JAMBIER JAAAAMMBIER !"

"No but look me at the good-looking there, with its alcoholic's face and its grey meat… With the lung everywhere; of the lung, the lung, has him that of the lung ! But you are going not to change mouth one day you, no? And other one there, ridiculous woman, her face in gelatin and lard, three chins, the tits which go downhill on the brioche… Fifty years each, hundred years for the lot, hundred years of bullshit! But what what is what you came to do on Earth, God's name? You are not ashamed to exist?"

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