Working Class Paris: The Musical

by Gaetana Caldwell-Smith & Michael Schreiber / May 2009

"Paris 36," directed by Christophe Barratier, written by Barratier and Pierre Phillipe; starring Gerard Jugnot, Nora Amezedar, Clovis Comillac, and Bernard Pierre Donnadieu. In French, with English sub-titles.

Director Christophe Barratier’s film, "Paris 36," (called "Faubourg 36" in the version released in France) is a musical tragi-comedy set during the political and economic turmoil of pre-war France.

Many reviewers have been cold to the film. David Denby, writing in The New Yorker, complains that "‘Paris 36‘ is not so much a leftist film as a film nostalgic for leftism." Melissa Anderson, in the Village Voice, calls it "an aggressively nostalgic, tinny homage to French musicals of the 1930s and ’40s."

Sure, it’s nostalgic. But on the other hand, the film is delightful. It shows that the cinema can deal with political subjects while not being tied down to dour realism. This is the Paris of the Technicolor movie past; but here the fantasy and romance is set against the background of a working-class upsurge and the Socialist Party-led Popular Front government of the mid-1930s.

The interconnecting plots involve love, betrayal, loyalty, steadfast courage, mobster thuggery, with a pinch of family values thrown in. Along the way, the film throws in a large scoop of good humor, joyous song and dance routines, and even some swarmy kitsch.

The film fondly celebrates the people of a run-down district on the edge of Paris — focusing on a group of theater workers who run a popular music hall in the neighborhood. The theater itself, the Chansonia, is at the center of the action. It is managed by a middle-age family man, Pigoil (Gerard Jugnot)—the glue that holds the whole enterprise together.

Pigoil, the entertainers, and stage crew are preparing a show to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1935-36. But it could end up being their last performance.

A gangster, Galapiat (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu), who operates in league with local fascists, has acquired the Chansonia in hopes of demolishing it and selling the property to developers. The ornate old theater is boarded up, and soon pasted over with dueling political posters; many slogans tout the leftist parties ("Votez Communiste!") while an equal number favor the ultra-right forces ("Pour une France au Sang Pur!").

But the political ferment has its effect on the Chansonia too. The theater workers occupy the music hall and re-open it under their own management. In that way, the theater provides a microcosm of what was happening in the outside world during the mid-1930s, in which thousands of French workers were striking, occupying their factories—and battling in the streets—to protect their jobs and livelihoods.

The film’s main characters, of course, have their own troubles to deal with. Pigoil’s wife runs off with her lover, leaving Pigoil and his son, Jojo, to fend for themselves. Cops pinch Jojo for begging (actually, performing on the streets with his accordion). The equivalent of today’s Child Protective Services wants to take him away from his father since Pigoil hasn't a steady income. Jojo is taken away, but his accordion is left.

In the meantime, the theater workers hire a young woman, Douce (Nora Amezedar), a naive, comely blond from the provinces, as Mistress of Ceremonies, who is asked to show her "gams" at her audition. She obliges the raucous music-hall audience’s demands that she sing, with songs her mother taught her; she soon becomes the main attraction. But Douce angers Galapiat, who has taken her under his wing, by rebuffing his passes. Her true love is Emile (Clovis Comillac), a stage hand and dedicated Communist organizer.

Galapiat gets Jacky Jaquet (Kad Merad), an enthusiastic but politically innocent performer, to spy on Douce when she’s with Emile and report back to him. The mobster also hires him to perform an anti-Semitic clown act at a huge fascist rally, using a script they hand him. Jacky’s act at the Chansonia is (bad) animal imitations; he is laughed off the stage until he discovers towards the end of the film he can sing.

"Paris 36" ends with the Popular Front president of France, Leon Blum, authorizing many of the demands of the workers for better working conditions. This episode is played against a background of a full-blown musical just this side of Busby Berkeley. But tragedy strikes, and in the film’s dénouement Pigoil is hauled off to jail.

And in reality, the workers’ "victory" was likewise short lived—with a sad aftermath. The Popular Front, and its Rooseveltian half-hearted reforms, had served to head off and demobilize the workers’ struggle. With that accomplished, the bosses and their parties decided that they no longer needed the cover of having Socialists and Communists participate in government. A repressive government soon came to power—followed just three years later by Hitler’s invasion.