Désarroi (1946)
Directed by Robert-Paul Dagan

Film Review

Victorien Sardou's 1881 celebrated stage play Odette was the inspiration for this absurdly overwrought melodrama, the only film which Robert-Paul Dagan directed solo.  Prior to this, Dagan had pursued a successful career as a screenwriter and worked as an assistant Marcel L'Herbier and Jean Dréville on several of their films, including Le Président Haudecoeur (1940) and La Nuit fantastique (1942). Clumsily appropriating some of the devices of American film noir (flashback, slanted angles, high-contrast lighting, etc.), Dagan makes a determined but ultimately doomed attempt to breathe life into a stillborn narrative that isn't helped by the lacklustre performances from a cast who appear bored with the whole thing (even Jules Berry looks as if he is slumming it).

What is most objectionable about the film, however, is its hideously bombastic score which drowns out large chunks of the dialogue and serves only to distract the spectator from what is happening on the screen.  There are some inspired moments (such as the eerie transition into the main flashback by the opening of a door) but these are too few and far between to save the film.  It is not hard to see why Robert-Paul Dagan never directed a film again after this.  The title Désarroi is grimly appropriate if translated as disarray.

Film Synopsis

Pierre, 20, is in love with Martine, and the two plan to marry as soon as the latter has come of age.  Pierre's mother, Madame Meillan, becomes opposed to the marriage when she discovers that Martine's mother is an adventurer who lives a dissolute life with her gambler partner.  Unable to break this news to his daughter, Martine's father, Clermont-Latour, has led her to think that her mother is dead.  When Clermont-Latour's last attempt of buy off his former wife fails, she returns, intent on revealing to Martine that she is still very much alive...