Le Pays sans étoiles (1946)
Directed by Georges Lacombe

Film Review

Le Pays sans étoiles is director Georges Lacombe's most poetic film, an inspired adaptation of a novel of the same title by Pierre Véry, first published in 1945.  Véry's idiosyncratic novels have given French cinema some of its enduring classics, including  Les Disparus de Saint-Agil, Goupi-Mains rouges and L'Assassinat du Père Noël, and Lacombe's haunting film deserves a place along side these better known films.  With its central theme of history being bound to repeat itself, thereby negating the notion of free will, the film chimes with with some other notable films of this era, including Les Jeux sont faits (1947) and L'Éternel retour (1947), both directed by Jean Delannoy with input from Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Cocteau respectively.

Perfectly attuned to the eerie romanticism of the piece is a 23-year-old Gérard Philipe, quietly imposing in his first major screen role (prior to this he had bit parts in two films by Marc and Yves Allégret).  Making a jarring contrast with Philipe's innocence and gauche charm is a truly nasty Pierre Brasseur, who when he is not causing trouble and trying to work his way into bed with Jany Holt, is seen casually slinging cats around the set.  Brasseur would become renowned for his villainous portrayals in later years but here he is at his most seductively vile, charming and loathsome in equal measure.  Jany Holt completes this remarkable trio of talent, and is a model of enigmatic charm, a curious mix of classic femme fatale and fairytale heroine.  Louis Page's cinematography contributes much to the mystical allure of the film, seamlessly blending together the parallel story strands in a way that makes the tragic ending inevitable.  The poor quality of the exterior sets betrays the budgetary limitations somewhat, but other than this there is not much to fault with this strange and beguiling film.

Film Synopsis

After an accident in which he suffers a head injury, Simon Legouge, a modest notary's clerk, begins to experience a series of strange visions.   Seeing that Simon needs a change of air, his employer sends him to Spain to deal with an inheritance matter.  During the train journey, Simon seems to recognise the unfamiliar countryside.  Even more bizarrely, when he arrives at his destination, a village named Tournepique, he feels he knows the people he meets there.  Haunted by a growing sense of dejà-vu, Simon begins to investigate an unsolved crime that was committed a hundred years before...