A Lover’s Return by Christian-Jaque (1946)

Posted on 12.10.2024

A man returns to Lyon, the city of his adolescence. Having become a powerful and famous artist, he is back to exact revenge on those who forced him to flee the city long ago, copping an aggressive attitude tinged with irony. Inspired by a famous local news story, A Lover’s Return sketches a wonderful portrait of Lyon, with its impressive architecture and formidable silk bourgeoisie.

A Lover’s Return by Christian-Jaque, 1946 © DR

The sublime car sequence, driving across the city's neighbourhoods, will live long in our memory, evoking an overwhelming sense of longing, knowing what all the various buildings symbolise. Accompanied by a highly nostalgic score by Arthur Honegger, director Christian-Jaque literally tosses Louis Jouvet, unapologetically, into the role of a modern Monte Cristo. The actor incarnates the ‘return’ with relentless sanctimony, opting for humour rather than tragedy when faced with the amazingly closed-minded and pathetic ghosts of his past. Standing in contrast to this old generation, devoured by money and an insatiable need to enrichen its endeavours through sheer recklessness and relative imagination, is Youth, played with ardent candour by François Périer, a marvellously innocent being who dreams  of becoming an artist. A Lover’s Return, though, is not a Manichean tale of the cloistered bourgeoisie in the face of an artistic world that transcends all materialism. This fine comedy, equally entertaining and enthralling, takes the intrigue even further, because without us realising it, it makes us question the very beings we truly are, and the easy cruelty that lies dormant in all of us, which we must ultimately know how to contain. This makes A Lover’s Return indeed an acerbic and sarcastic promenade, but it also contains tenderness and intellectual merit, thanks to the tone created by Henri Jeanson's admirable and highly inventive dialogue. “You're far too intelligent to be acting in good faith” is one of the fabulous lines that haunt this lover’s return.

Virginie Apiou

A Lover’s Return by Christian-Jaque (Un revenant, 1946, 1h40, VFSTA)
Other screenings:
Institut Lumière (Hangar) Fri. 18 at 4.30 pm | Lumière Terreaux Sun. 20 at 11.00 am