Dans la nuit by Charles Vanel

PostED ON 20.10.2022

Dans la nuit, 1930 © DR

The only feature film directed by the actor Charles Vanel, Dans la nuit, shot in 1929, is such an accomplishment that this silent movie gives you the impression you can hear the voices of its characters. This story of a couple in which the man (played by a massive yet light Vanel) ends up half disfigured, starts out as joyful chaos and then mutates into fantastic chaos. To incorporate this transformation, Vanel keeps it simple. He uses the day and its full brightness to convey the cheerfulness, the excited life of newlyweds who are in love. Then, suddenly, we are plunged into ink-hued night, an opaque, powerful black, which half invades, like the half-lost face of the hero, souls and the very air.

Life, regardless of what it is, clings to every shot of the film, bodies swinging in all directions, in full euphoria or in full fear. This refusal of half measures conveys a feeling of great freedom mixed with willpower. Vanel, the director, knows exactly what he wants and expresses a very personal sense of the frame. His sensual, tender couple never carry themselves like the others, between extreme close-ups of the palm of a hand invading a cheek, or, on the contrary, the shot of a seated young groom holding his sleeping wife in his arms like an inverted pietà. Rhythmic, inventive, disordered to perfection, ‘Dans la nuit’ is an impressive cascade of formidable emotions.

Virginie Apiou

Screenings:

Dans la nuit  by Charles Vanel (1930, 1h30, VFSTA)

Silent film concert at the Auditorium of Lyon: Thursday, October 20, 8pm