Air of Paris

Victor, a former boxer who runs a small gym in Paris, spots the talent he has been looking for in a young man working at the station and decides to make him a champion. His wife Blanche watches what that enthusiasm does to their household. The film is not interested in boxing. It is interested in living through somebody else: Victor is training not a boy but the chance he missed himself, and he never asks the young man what he actually wants. The form belongs to late Marcel Carné: a Paris built in the studio, a measured pace, and a story that trusts small gestures. Jean Gabin plays Victor and Arletty his wife. The pair had worked together on Carné's masterpieces, and this is their reunion; the difference in register is obvious, with the heavy fatalism of poetic realism replaced by the story of a tired marriage. Who it is for: admirers of Gabin and Arletty and of fifties French cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a sports film. The bouts are short and most of the film takes place outside the gym.