Post-war Paris, and in particular the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district in the late Forties, was full of creative and intellectual excitement. This documentary follows the gradual emancipation of the Parisian youth in a journey that goes from the Saint-Julien-le Pauvre church to the cafes and cellars of Saint-Germain, legendary places like Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, La Hune, Le Tabou, Club Saint-Germain, La Rose Rouge and the Vieux Colombier, and coincides with the discovery of be-bop and Claude Luter, New Orleans jazz and Boris Vian, the poems of Prévert and the novels of Camus, the Lettrism movement led by Gabriel Pomerand and the philosophy of Satre. Basing itself around a series of encounters, Désordre includes, in the modern jungle represented, a wide variety of characters brought together by Jacques Baratier at just the right moment.

“So many names! It’ll be another flop, all-star shows always are” (Voice-over, the film starts). In white chalk on a blackboard: Orson Welles, Sophie Desmarets, Roger Pierre, Juliette Greco, Gabriel Pomerand, Diane de Riaz, Pagliero, Nicole Vedrès, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Audiberti, Jean Cocteau, Paul Guth, Jean Genet, etc. And a song by Raymond Queneau. A movie about Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Émilie Cauquy

In 1950. Questioning a certain number of people, like on television now. Talking with qualified people, in other words, well-known figures” (Nicole Vedrès in the Tv program Portrait de Nicole Vedrès, 1964).

“Perhaps […] [intelligence] should simply be considered a category of aesthetics based on which we can establish cinema not only as the heir of the novel or theater or, more rarely, poetry. It can also be a descendant of the essay – and apparently there can be awful ones, just like at the bookstore. All of this today sounds commonplace, but before Paris 1900 and La Vie commence demain it wasn’t at all” (Chris Marker, Marker Mémoire, Cinémathèque française program, January-February 1998).

The title comes from a 1947 book by André Labarthe (1902-1967), who appears in the film.

Émilie Cauquy