Daybreak was shown by Cineclube do Porto at Batalha in November 1947 as an alternative to the screening of Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, at the time forbidden by the state censors. The film, which premiered in France three months before the start of World War Two, is built on a narrative web familiar from classical tragedies. After committing a murder, a man shuts himself in his apartment and recalls the events that led to the crime. Described by film critic André Bazin as “almost a social documentary on the life of a labourer”, Le jour se lève is also one of the most representative examples of poetic realism.