Directed by Marcel Carné. Starring Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Marcel Herrand, Pierre Renoir Club, QFT, Belfast, 190 min

RESISTANCE IS the word. Filmed intermittently and often secretly in Nazi-occupied Paris, Marcel Carné's 1945 epic is frequently cited as the greatest French film of all time. The legend is indisputable. Les Enfants du Paradisraised the spirits of a nation and provided a minor economic miracle on a continent brought to the verge of destruction.

Long before Roberto Rossellini got to work on his own post-war masterpiece, Roma, Open City, Carné's film was defiantly in production. The picture's very existence is an act of political sabotage. Producer André Paulvé was reinstated after the Nazis uncovered his distant Jewish ancestry and banned him from working on the film. Reels were heroically sequestered away from occupying forces, and many of the thousand-plus extras were resistance agents who used the production as cover.

The legend masks a darker history. After Paris was liberated in August 1944, many scenes had to be reshot when actor Robert le Vigan, sentenced to death for collaborating with the Nazis, fled the country. Even Arletty, the film’s transcendent star, found herself in jail following a wartime liason with a German officer.

Inevitably, Les Enfants du Paradisechoes back its turbulent production period. The prepossessing heroine, Garance (Arletty), like France under Vichy, is endlessly compromised and cajoled by gentlemen callers. She denies her heart in pursuit of freedom, only to wind up in a gilded cage as an A-list courtesan.

Garance is an eternal poster girl for Smart Women: Bad Choices, so it's a tribute to Arletty that Garance runs off with the rich aristocrat yet remains cinema's most heart- breaking heroine this side of the silent era. Her tragedy is deepened by an equally affecting performance from Jean-Louis Barrault as the besotted mime she really should have married in the first place.

An actor (Pierre Brasseur) and a thief (Marcel Herrand) round out the suitors and re-enact a grand Greek-sized cycle. There is urgency in the dimensions of the project, in its nostalgic 1840s setting, in its celebration of lost theatrical arts and earlier, dreamier cinematic forms. For any number of reasons, Les Enfants du Paradisis like a beautiful piece of graffiti that reads "we were here".