Before the flood
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Before the flood |
| Original title | Avant le déluge |
 | |
| Country of production | France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1954 |
| length | 140 minutes |
| Age rating | JMK from 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | André Cayatte |
| script |
Charles Spaak André Cayatte |
| production | André Halley des Fontaines |
| music | Georges Van Parys |
| camera | Jean Bourgoin |
| cut | Paul Cayatte |
| occupation | |
| |
Before the Flood is a French-Italian drama from 1954 directed by André Cayatte .
action
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, this also had an impact on the psyche of a group of French youth. Richard, Philippe, Daniel, Jean and Lilian are close friends, but what they all have in common is that they are not understood by their parents and that they feel too little cared for. The global political crisis intensifies this deep feeling of insecurity, and in their youthful enthusiasm the young people dream of escaping the dreary everyday life in gray post-war France and emigrating to the South Seas . Philippe's mother even lends her yacht to the adventurers. In order to finance this trip, the five try to blackmail the lover of Philippe's mother, Monsieur de Montesson. The pretty Liliane acts as a decoy.
Things soon get completely out of hand: During a break-in, one of them, Jean, panics and shoots a night watchman. The police track down the young people because the license plate of the car the five used for the crime was noted. It belongs to Daniel Epstein. His four friends then want to test his steadfastness against the police, who are questioning him, and demand a test of courage. He dies in the process - Daniel is drowned in a bathtub. Now the remaining four are caught in the crosshairs of the police and the judiciary. Did you actually kill your boyfriend? The sensitive Jean then makes a suicide attempt and confesses everything.
A world is now collapsing for the parents of the accused, the bourgeois facade has deep cracks, and the legal guardians are beginning to ask themselves essential questions about a possible failure of their own. You are sitting in the trial room, in which the public has not been admitted, and are watching the hearing in horror. In the end there are two dead and three more young lives destroyed because the remaining male friends are sentenced to several years of forced labor. Only Liliane gets off well, she is acquitted.
Production notes
Before the Flood , the film was shot from June 26th to October 2nd, 1953. The world premiere took place on February 26, 1954 in Paris. The film opened in Germany on November 17, 1955. The first German television broadcast took place on March 22, 1961 on ARD .
Jacques Colombier designed the film structures .
criticism
In Der Spiegel you can read: “The author and director André Cayatte (" jury court "), who is always ready to prosecute, proves the parents' sole guilt for the blood crimes of their half-grown children in a very monotonous, cumbersome and also violent manner. But some family details are intelligently observed, and the exquisitely directed actors cover up the dodges of the dramaturgy. "
Reclam's guide states: “Cayatte deals with the failures of the parents' generation in this film. He varies his thesis in the private sphere, at home and in big politics, where the Korean War is cited as a motive for the youth's fatigue with civilization. Much seems too hypothetical; the young people's dreams of the South Seas seem a bit obtrusively romanticized. But the critical approach is convincing. "
The lexicon of the international film says: “A haunting and committed film, the plot of which is tied into the brackets of a process, thereby tracing the responsibility of parents, who are full of prejudices and negligence: they are guilty of anti-Semitism, arrogance and petty arrogance . The theses may be simplistic (in terms of film effectiveness), but they are convincing and excitingly dramatized. "
Georges Sadoul wrote: “After a series of secondary films, André Cayatte created an important trilogy on legal issues: 'Justice est faite' (jury court) shows the psychology and mechanism of a jury. 'Nous sommes tous des Assassins' (We are all murderers) is a heavy indictment of the death penalty. 'Avant le Déluge' (Before the Flood) deals with the problem of juvenile criminals in the context of war psychosis ... "
useful information
In this film, Cayatte again used several names for the main roles, which also appeared in his two productions We Are All Murderers and / or The Black Nudes : Le Guen, Boussard and Arnaud.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jean-Claude Sabria: Cinéma français. Les années 50. Paris 1987, No. 78
- ↑ Before the Flood in Der Spiegel , December 14, 1955.
- ↑ Reclams Filmführer, by Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. P. 218. Stuttgart 1973.
- ↑ Before the Flood. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Georges Sadoul: History of the cinematic art. Vienna 1957, p. 398
Web links
- Before the flood in the Internet Movie Database (English)