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Le Val d'enfer
1943 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Maurice Tourneur
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Script: Carlo Rim
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Photo: Armand Thirard
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Music: Roger Dumas
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Cast: Ginette Leclerc (Marthe),
Gabriel Gabrio (Noël Bienvenu),
Édouard Delmont (Le père Bienvenu),
Lucien Gallas (Barthélémy),
Gabrielle Fontan (La mère Bienvenu),
André Reybaz (Bastien Bienvenu),
Raymond Cordy (Poiroux),
Charles Blavette (Cagnard),
Marcel Raine (Antonin),
Edmond Beauchamp (Rodrigo),
Nicole Chollet (Gustine),
Georges Patrix (Le sauvage)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 88 min; B&W
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Summary
Foreman of a quarry in Haute-Provence, Noël Bienvenu lives with his elderly parents
after the death of his wife. Shortly after his son, Bastien, is sent to prison for
a minor theft, Noël visits an old friend who, on his deathbed, asks the foreman to
take care of his daughter, Marthe. In the wake of an ill-fated romance in Marseilles,
Marthe is all too eager to start a new life and accepts Noël’s invitation to live
in his house. Noël falls in love with Marthe and, although he is twenty years
her senior, they marry. It is not long before Marthe realises her mistake.
Bored by her husband, bored by her life in the quarry, she begins to have an affair with
a young bargeman…
Review
Le Val d'enfer was the fourth of five films which
Maurice Tourneur made for Continental, the German run film company that operated in France
during the Nazi occupation. (The others were: Péchés
de jeunesse, Mam'zelle Bonaparte,
La Main du diable and
Cécile est morte, released between
1941 and 1944). It is easily one of Tourneur’s bleakest films, reflecting the director's
gloomy assessment of human nature at a time when France had fallen, perhaps too willingly,
under the might of fascism. The excellent cast includes Ginette Leclerc playing
a truly venal character who shows a total lack of humanity and compassion as she wilfully
ruins the lives of the kind people who offer her help and affection. Needless to
say, the film didn't do much good for her public image.
Partly as a result of the impressive exterior scenes shot in a working quarry, the
film has a striking sense of realism that sets it apart from most other films of this
period. The naturalistic performances and beautifully atmospheric chiaroscuro photography
add to this impression, making the story a particularly poignant and absorbing one.
The one flaw is that the plot feels too contrived, the characters too simplistic, and
the ultimate triumph of good over evil far too easily and swiftly achieved.
Like
many films made in France at the time, Le Val d’enfer
is a coded allegory about the Occupation. Cinema audiences would have
had little difficulty identifying Ginette Leclerc’s character, Marthe, with the enemy
of the French people – the Vichy government, the Nazis, and all collaborators.
The good guys – the aptly named Bienvenu family – are honest folk who allow themselves
to be poisoned and divided by the soulless Marthe. Just when everything seems to
be lost an anonymous hero ("Le sauvage") saves the day and the old order is restored -
an optimistic message that would undoubtedly have brought comfort too many, whilst doubtless
encouraging others to offer their support to the French Resistance. With such a blatant
anti-Nazi subtext, you can't help wondering how the film ever managed to get past the
German censors...
© James Travers 2007
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