At the Top of the Stairs (1983) User Reviews

Toulon Ou Le Temps D'Un Retour

[dbdumonteil · 7/10 · 27 September 2013]

Ambitious ,not always palatable for the mainstream audience (hence the commercial failure),"En Haut Des Marches" is a demanding work and one of Danielle Darrieux's most interesting parts (and she starred in many important movies)

Suzanne's husband was a collaborator during WW2 and he was turned in by his own family at the Liberation ,a family who took advantage of him during the dark days of the occupation.

In 1963,the lady comes back to Toulon after years of exile ;then begins a long walk in space and time ,in which she remembers (no flashbacks,but De Gaulle's and Pétain's speeches ,a class where she used to be a schoolteacher and where she had to teach the "moral doctrine " of the Marechal..).

Imaginary events run into each others and into reality: she kills her family to avenge her husband and there is a questioning by a detective and a trial during which she is defended by her goddaughter (and former pupil).These scenes are the most convincing in the whole movie,and all their conversations always come up against the same question:"what could I do?I did not know about the concentration camps ,the final solution...."And although she does not utter these worlds we feel that Suzanne is about to shout :"you can't understand ,even with your history books,you were not in my shoes at THAT time ,and it's easy to live a politically correct lawyer's life!"

Influenced by early Alain Resnais,Paul Vecchiali opts for a fragmented narration which might repel some viewers ;but those who will accompany Darrieux in her strange trip will be rewarded.

Darrieux shines in a transcendental and compelling gem

[RogerTheMovieManiac88 · 10/10 · 14 February 2017]

Set in the mid-1960s, Paul Vecchiali's searching, compassionate story of a woman returning to the city of Toulon in which her Pétainist husband had been gunned down nineteen years before is told with an extraordinary acuity for the pain and internal conflicts that such experiences and their reawakening after so many years causes to an individual. Vecchiali oscillates deftly and imaginatively between the past and the present and makes astonishing use of landmarks and surroundings that prompt associated memories of the past happenings in these streets to confront the returned widow as well as highlighting the solitary nature of her sad relationship with a city that has largely moved on.

This is a deeply personal, probing film and one that features perhaps one of the very finest late-career performances from the remarkable Danielle Darrieux. Vecchiali was, I've read, a long-time fan and he draws a deeply touching, spellbinding characterisation from this most wonderful of stars. She is elegant and yet adrift and displaced. So utterly moving yet disarmingly funny. Wistful and lonely and yet still imparting little moments of charm and happiness and song. It is an extraordinary leading turn that cannot but touch one's heart as she steps back into the complexities of the past in a Toulon that throws up difficult and interwoven memories at every turn. This is an intensely moving film and one with a sublimely evocative and understated sense of artistry and period detail that complements wonderfully the quietly affecting intimacy of Darrieux's central performance.

'En haut des marches' is a film to cherish. I do believe it was my first exposure to the films of Paul Vecchiali. Safe to say it won't be my last!