Honestly i don't think i will ever watch it again but it's worth anyway to have seen it once. In France, it's a classic especially with the famous line told by Arletty. My opinion is that the movie is not that gripping or moving but it has a historical value that all the others french movie of that period lack: the amazing technical feat to build this small neighborhood of Paris in a studio is the thing that changes everything (maybe at this time, it was like the future James Cameron building Titanic). The result is extraordinary: For one time, we have the feeling to breathe the street of Paris and this is an unique experience: you can discover that France has always been this decaying, old country inhabited by gentle but limited rednecks (to eat, to seduce, to sing and no rules)! We are not a country of visionaries, of traditions, we don't understand modernism, future... When i watch a movie about an hotel, i expect to see visitors and passing by moments of life. In that way, the movie is rich but in the same time, a bit too calm and slow to be a great experience. When i decided to go back in time in movies, i was fearing that black and white movies would be dull and painful to watch but honestly, it's much less aggressive than the actual blue / orange filtering and the frame can have indeed a poetic or dramatic addition.
Review of Hotel du Nord
