Le Val d'enfer (1943)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur

Film Review

Le Val d'enfer was the fourth of five films which director Maurice Tourneur made for Continental, the German run film company that operated in France during the Nazi occupation.  (The others make a mixed bag comprising 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, its dark tone strongly reflecting the gloomy era in which it was made.  The film's boasts a cast of primarily well-established character actors with Ginette Leclerc in the starring role.  Leclerc's is 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 possesses a striking sense of realism that sets it apart from the vast majority of French films of this period (most being studio-based and very few being contemporary dramas).  The naturalistic performances and beautifully atmospheric chiaroscuro photography add to this impression, making the story a particularly poignant and absorbing one.  The presence of Marcel Pagnol regulars Édouard Delmont and Charles Blavette adds greatly to the film's almost neo-realist authenticity. The one flaw is that the plot, whilst well constructed, feels a tad contrived, the characters too simplistic, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil far too easily and swiftly achieved.

Whilst not an overtly political piece, Le Val d'enfer does seem to come with a slight pro-Vichy slant, with Ginette Leclerc's character epitomising the kind of selfish and destructive individualist that was anathema to Maréchal Pétain's concept of an ordered society founded on devotion to the family, the nation and good, honest work.  Ironically, after the Liberation, Leclerc would be taken to task for her association with Continental (she had also starred in H.G. Clouzot's much vilified Le Corbeau), with the result that she would be relegated to supporting roles for the rest of her career.

Film Synopsis

The foreman of a quarry in the Haute-Provence region of France, Noël Bienvenu lives with his elderly parents after the death of his wife.  Not long after his son Bastien is sent to prison for six months for committing 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 Marseille, Marthe is all too eager to start a new life and readily accepts Noël's invitation to live in his house.  Noël falls in love with Marthe and, although he is twenty years her senior, they soon marry.  It is not long before Marthe realises her mistake.  Bored by her husband, bored by her empty life in the quarry, she begins to have an affair with a young bargeman...