Audience Member
A great set piece about the dangers of gambling. The highs of winning are quickly forgotten when the crippling debt and depression comes during the times of loss.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Jacques Demy's 1963's "Bay of Angels" is something altogether different from his other films --- but just beneath the surface is shares a great deal in common with his work.
Within the first few seconds of "Bay of Angels" we know we are in for something unique. Demy has worked closely with both Michel LeGrand and his score and even more closely with Jean Rabier's cinematography to plunge into the world of dreams called The Riviera.
We, like the innocent bank clerk will soon be locked into the speed and beat of the images and sounds the surround our "Femme Fatale," in the form of Jeanne Moreau's "Jackie." This is one of if not the best work Moreau ever did. Like every role she has ever played -- Moreau has been transformed into an alluring guise of a movie glam star. In blonde dyed hair fashion ala Monroe and clothing to match which can just as easily change into a somewhat perverse version of Jackie Kennedy. "Guise" is the key word there.
Jean Moreau's performance is addictive. It is impossible not to watch her. As she flamboyantly smokes her cigarettes and hug boas, she flirts, gambles, wins, loses and repeats it all again. "Jackie" seems to be unaware of what is already fading into a form of madness and doom.
Our male protagonist appears to be as addicted to gambling as to "Jackie." And who can blame him? He has played it safe all his life and has rashly decided to toss the safety of his bank job to follow Jackie, gambling and the idea of a jet-style lifestyle.
At first glance you might think they are in love, but Jackie gave up on the idea of love long ago. She isn't even concerned about winning or losing. Welcome to Demy's fascination of false hopes and dreams. The difference is that Moreau hints that she is enjoying the game pulling "Jean" into her world ruled by the roll of the dice or the luck of the cards.
This is not a film about gambling addiction. The is film about dreamers. Jackie is addict the idea of the dream gambling offers. The ultimate doom of her fate seems looming and we get brief gestures and glances from Moreau to underscore that she understands. The question is will Jean gain insight that he has entered a dream?
Breath-taking a
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
"La Baie des Anges" é uma prova vital de como o cinema francês, quando modera nas suas pretensões artsy-fartsy, consegue cativar-nos com as mais memoráveis histórias de homem e mulher. Neste, que é um filme dramático superior sobre a flutuação do amor e do jogo, há que ter em conta que Jacques Demy teve toda a sorte em poder contar com a mais pausada Jeanne Moreau (a mulher é um assombro) e com uma música de Michel Legrand ao piano que parece capaz de fazer disparar todos os alarmes do coração. Sem precisar de recorrer a grandes twists ou de apostar demasiado na intelectualização das coisas, "La Baie des Anges" é um filme "hurts so good" que deve ser aproveitado quando houver oportunidade disso.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Right before Demy turned all cheerful and started to make pink musicals with Catherine Deneuve and a bunch of singers and dancers and acquiring an international reputation, but right after submerging us in an affair taking place in an adult-oriented world of cabarets, he made his most serious, straightforward drama called <i>Bay of Angels</i>, starring the sexy smoker Jeanne Moreau. Undoubtedly, it is also one of his best films, with Costa Gavras as an assistant director!
Jeanne Moreau is Jacqueline 'Jackie' Demaistre, a woman who left her husband and children and heads for the roulette tables of Nice. There she meets a young man, Jean Fournier, who coincidentally stumbles upon her in a winning streak inside the casino. From now on, he will form an emotional attachment towards her. She will too, but unconsciously, because her primary intention is to stick with him and merely utilize him as a lucky horseshoe. A self-destructive relationship is born, both financially and emotionally, with the classic unconventional endings that Demy always presented.
As I see it, <i>Bay of Angels</i> is a metaphor about relationships and a discussion regarding our perceptions of what constitutes probabilities (or chance, more informally).
To address the first topic, Jean and Jackie represent relationships based on chance. Both meet in improbable (but not impossible) circumstances during a winning streak. All the numbers that Jean called in the roulette were successful. Witnessing this, and in an inconscious attempt to intensify her addiction problem, Jackie also calls the numbers Jean does right after he calls them. Of course, they are winners. Both are attracted to each other, but for whole different reasons. However, they do not speak of their reasons, leading to a lack of communication, and consequently, conflicts. My point is that they also gambled with their hearts, especially Jean. He was gambling with his heart and emotions with the danger of losing them because he decided to stay with a woman who clearly had a gambling addiction and was using them as a lucky charm. However, she was also gambling with her heart as she realized that she was also falling for him in a self-destructive relationship of dependence towards him. The main message here is, therefore, that every time a person is attracted to another person and decides to stick with him/her out of merely superficial reasons, without knowledge of his/her personality or personal backgrounds, you are gambling with your heart and emotions, which could be lost forever. The bet is a relationship. The prize that could be either won or lost is your happinnes, and in the most extreme of cases, your life. People can commit suicide out of a broken heart.
This brings me to the second point: perceptions of probabilities. People have trouble believing the highly improbable series of events in the life of Jamal in <i>Slumdog Millionaire</i> (2008), but do not have trouble applying suspension of disbelief during a lucky streak in a casino sequence directed by, say, Scorsese, because everything is edited so stylishly and because "that's the point of the movie". This illogical bias does not only apply in movies, but in life as well. We are willing to assign a higher level of credibility to certain events, but not to others, when in fact probabilities are just human measures to quantify uncertainties. They are uncertainties because we are not sure about them given our limited scope of things. So it <b>could be</b> equally likely for Jamal to be asked about his life experiences in order, or Jackie and Jean having lucky streaks, or Jackie and Jean meeting in that casino at that time AND during a lucky streak. Where Demy is smart enough to introduce a sense of realism is in the following statement: it is highly improbable for a relationship to be successful if it was born right out of a perception of luck and financial interests.
One of the best gamble-themed classics out there because of using it as a subtext of our perceptions of luck, <i>Bay of Angels</i> provides food for thought from a point of view of an addiction affecting human relationships, with a fantastic opening, an unexpected finale, and an engaging development of events that, no matter how predictable (err... probable?) we saw them before they happened, it is very improbable to figure out how everything ends.
92/100
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
eric b
This early Jacques Demy film is beautifully shot and acted with exotic locations, elegant cars and a stirring Michel Legrand score. Unfortunately, the plot soon melts down into just a standard, cautionary tale about gambling. The arc is always the same. There's the initial, euphoric burst of beginner's luck. Then the subsequent frustration and squandering of funds, and an eventual descent into desperate times. Sound familiar? Jean (Claude Mann) is a novice gambler who gets hooked on casinos and meets a nihilistic divorcee (Jeanne Moreau, with platinum blonde hair) on the way. The pair become addicted to roulette, the most frivolous of games, and make lavish bets based on silly whims with scarcely a trace of strategy. Their behavior breeds exasperation rather than sympathy. Even the flashes of success they have don't seem plausible. Try "California Split" instead.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Pretty film that brandishes a realistic view of gambling addictions. The film is not very eventful, and the ending felt a bit rushed and... unsettled. I think that's the point though... I had a hard time mustering much sympathy for Moreau's brilliantly acted lead character.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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