Sous le ciel de Paris coule la Seine

Julien Duvivier develops loosely interwoven incidents into a panorama of a day in the life of the city of Paris and its people. Seven people, who unbeknownst to them will be decisive for each other on this day, function like the living signs of an artfully composed whole, in which the tragic has an equal footing with the comic and absurd. Certainly, the many random coincidences are the fruit of a scriptwriter and director’s mind but precisely because his omniscience seems to be taken to extremes here, the despotic nature of the narrative maneuvers also comes across clearly. With somnambulistic certainty, Duvivier strikes a balance between absolute hermeticism and boundless openness. (re/fl)