In Un singe en hiver (1962), Jean Gabin played Gabriel Fouquet, a former soldier and hotel owner in Normandy who, when a young man arrives at his hotel, is drawn back into the drinking, storytelling and old wars of his past. Directed by Henri Verneuil, from Antoine Blondin’s novel, the film is a warm, funny and melancholy portrait of male friendship.
Gabriel is gruff, generous and haunted by the wars he survived, and Gabin plays him with a tenderness that makes the comedy deeply human. Opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo, he creates a partnership of two generations, in which old stories are told, glasses are raised, and a man’s past is finally faced with humour. It is a fitting late Gabin role: a man who has lived, loved and lost, and who still knows how to laugh.