Le Jour Se Lève (1939) on Netflix
François, a foundry worker, shoots Valentin and locks himself in his apartment while police besiege the building. He thinks back to Françoise, a florist's assistant he wanted to marry.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.6/108,963 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Foundry worker François shoots Valentin and then shuts himself inside his apartment. Police gather outside and try to break in, but they pull back to work out how to take him, and François begins to recall the months that led to the shooting. He had been seeing Françoise, a florist's assistant, and the two grew close over their shared names and the fact that neither had parents. He hoped to marry her, but she refused him and took up with the older Valentin, a dog trainer.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Le Jour Se Lève (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1947, RKO Radio Pictures acquired the distribution rights to Le jour se lève so it could remake it as The Long Night in Hollywood, and the company tried to buy up and destroy every copy it could find. The film was feared lost until it reappeared in the 1950s.
- The Vichy government banned Le jour se lève in 1940, claiming it was demoralizing, but after the war the film was shown again to wide acclaim.
- Alexandre Trauner built the bedroom set with all four walls rather than the usual three, allowing circular shots and emphasising the sense of confinement.
- In 1952, Le jour se lève was included in the first British Film Institute's Sight & Sound top ten Greatest Films of All Time list.
- A 2014 restored version released by StudioCanal reinstated dialogue and shots, including a nude Arletty, that Vichy censors had deleted from Le jour se lève.
