Had Robert Bresson been more inclined to make Pickpocket in the mould of the classic Hollywood screwball comedies that held quite a prominent place in the culture, it would have most likely looked very similar to Beating Heart (French: Battement de coeur), a charming and eccentric romantic comedy written and directed by Henri Decoin, who tells the story of an impressionable young woman who enters into a life of petty crime, but accidentally falls in love with one of her victims, leading to a series of mishaps and hilariously irreverent moments that constitute this delightful film. As the artist responsible for some of the most effervescent and charming comedies produced in France around this time, Decoin had quite a reputation, and while Beating Heart is not massively well-known by contemporary standards (most likely a result of the conventional structure of the story not matching with the more ambitious works that occurred alongside it), its the kind of delightful discovery that we all relish in stumbling upon on occasion, an unexpected gem of a film that may not be particularly serious or revolutionary, but has enough depth to keep us interested, and a wonderful sense of humour that allows the film to stay afloat, even when it becomes slightly derivative and unnecessarily convoluted in some parts, which is rare but a factor in understanding precisely why the film hasn’t attained a particularly notable status as a beloved work. More than anything else, Beating Heart is a firm reminder of how strong certain stories can be when they’re told well, and armed with precision and a good sense of direction, Decoin sets forth to tell this delightful story, taking us along on this peculiar but lovable journey into the heart of a charming little romance that is small in scope, but enormous in pure, unbridled emotion and genuine humour, which makes a profound difference in contrast to future works.

Watching any film in hindsight is going to provoke a certain reaction, especially if we are looking at an era particularly notable in a specific country’s history. Beating Heart was conceived and created in the late 1930s, an era that was not entirely free of challenges. Still, nothing could compare to what was about to emerge – and obviously we can’t assess any work of art through the lens of future events (at least not in a way that is a legitimate adjudication of the art itself), we can relish in how this is a work produced during a simpler time, one that was not defined by war in the way that those in the very near future would be, which adds a lot of interesting insight into the film if we look back on it. The film offers a charming and joyful voyage into pre-Vichy France, where everything seemed so much brighter and more positive, since these are filmmakers who did not know what was to come – and it’s perfectly appropriate to view it as such. Looking at the cinema produced in Europe between the two wars is often a fascinating endeavour – on one side, you have powerful and poignant stories of humanity fighting against internal struggles and the tensions that swept over the continent, while others have a similar jagged edge in terms of outlook, but its delivered with wit and joyfulness, almost as if the filmmakers were using the opportunity to distract from the more tense atmosphere, which was present in even the most endearing of works. There’s a lot of virtue in taking such an approach, and Decoin was a professional when it came to rivetting and complex stories, each one a developed and fully-functional masterwork in which everything feels earned, and the joy that comes through in each scene is never a distraction from the more serious social issues that underpin the story – the film just doesn’t need to pay too much attention to these details, since the audience is aware enough of the socio-cultural milieux to fill in the gaps and understand the circumstances that surround the film.

Beating Heart was also a very early work for Danielle Darrieux, one of the only actors who survived from the earliest days of mainstream French cinema into the modern era, living a life that reached past a century, and turning in countless memorable performances. Most of us are either used to seeing Darrieux play sophisticated older women or more elegant members of the bourgeoisie, but she was known to partake in slightly more varied characters on occasion, and with the right material, she often managed to convincingly play a range of roles. The character of Arlette in this film is a memorable one – she’s a down-on-her-luck street urchin who yearns for a life of high society glamour, and accidentally falls into it through, as fate would have it, a risky opportunity based on her desperation to earn a living. It’s a classic rags-to-riches tale, and the entire story hinges on Darrieux’s ability to easily run the gamut of emotions, oscillating between hilarious and melancholic at a moment’s notice, which is not an easy skill at all. Beating Heart is not a complex film, but it feels so much more layered when we focus on how Darrieux commands the screen, varying between earnest, salt-of-the-earth grit and demure sophistication – and her performance is the perfect representation of the film as a whole, since it also glides between the two with astonishing wit and an abundance of ease. When you have someone of her calibre as your lead, it’s difficult to make something that is not totally convincing and entirely invigorating, to the point where, despite the many talented performers working in France at the time, you simply can’t imagine anyone bringing this level of charm and deep sincerity to a role that truly required it, and works laboriously to make sure it achieves it in an abundance.

When it comes to assessing a film like Beating Heart, it’s not a particularly difficult film to judge. This is a story that lends itself to a kind of simplicity – the story is structured in a reliable but still very entertaining framework, and the balance of humour and gravitas is to be expected from such a production. Decoin doesn’t venture too far from the realm of reality, but he doesn’t need to – some comedies work best when they aren’t attempting to revolutionise the medium. French humour, at least in its earlier years, was always drawn from a sense of realism, where the absurdity of modern life and the social divide was used to create delicate, charming examples of the comedy-of-manners style, which was seemingly perfected by many of Decoin’s contemporaries like Marcel Pagnol, Jean Renoir and Sacha Guitry, and who tend to be most associated with this generation of tender but profoundly charming comedy. However, in both form and execution, Beating Heart manages to match them on at least a sentimental level, offering a charming and very funny glimpse into the lives of a group of eccentric characters, whose interactions are the foundation for this sweet, endearing and very funny romantic comedy that is both intriguing and joyful, which is a combination that is increasingly rare these days, but which only helps define this as one of the most cherished eras in the history of cinema.