One of the discoveries of this French series will surely be the need for an entire retrospective of the work of Jean Grémillon, whose films are far too little known here. Gueule d'Amour is driven by the electricity between Jean Gabin and Mireille Balin, but for this viewer its true power lies in the visuals with which Grémillon meticulously sets his scene; out of inanimate objects he creates a France alive with personality. The glasses arrayed on top of a bar, and the secret door underneath it; the rooftops of Southern France; a cinema-lobby mirror in which lovers are reunited; the art nouveau entrance to the Metro, or the underside of a cafe awning; the importance of a lobster cooked to perfection...all provide a fittingly material setting for this love sacrificed to class economics.
Gabin plays a working class military hero known throughout Southern France as “lover boy” for his cavalier way with women. When he meets his match in the elusive Balin, a wealthy Parisian, he sacrifices both title and job and embarks on a masochistic life of lying in wait for his obscure object. In his brooding, closed mouth intensity, he is the essential romantic hero; in his longing and his patience he will not bend...before he breaks. (JB)