Directed by Julien Duvivier • 1929 • France
Starring Maria Jacobini, Francis Lederer, Jean Dax
Stylishly mobile camerawork animates this elegant late-silent melodrama from Julien Duvivier, one of the leading lights of French poetic realism, in which a wealthy baroness (beautifully played by Maria Jacobini) trapped in a loveless marriage finds release from her gilded cage in a passionate affair with a dashing, much younger military officer (Francis Lederer). Determined to escape the stifling pressures of bourgeois propriety, the pair flee to Algeria—but can their love survive in the far-off desert?
Up Next in Season 1
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Les portes de la nuit
Directed by Marcel Carné • 1946 • France
Starring Yves Montand, Pierre Brasseur, Serge ReggianiThe last of the celebrated collaborations between director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert (CHILDREN OF PARADISE) unfolds in a dreamily beautiful vision of a wintry, nocturnal Paris shor...
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Ladies’ Paradise
Directed by Julien Duvivier • 1930 • France
Starring Dita Parlo, Ginette Maddie, Andrée BrabantThe final silent film directed by Julien Duvivier, this dazzling adaptation of a novel by Émile Zola harnesses the full expressive potential of the form to create a visual symphony of exquisite camera...
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The Lower Depths
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
Starring Jean Gabin, Louis Jouvet, Suzy PrimJean Renoir’s fascinating adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play softens the bleak social realism of the source material thanks to the director’s gently humanist, distinctly Gallic touch. Comedy an...
