Jean Renoir

  • La règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game] (1939)

    La règle du jeu [The Rules of the Game] (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, March 2020) Not every classic hits the same, and so not only am I not overly impressed at La règle du jeu, I’m also not impressed with myself for not being impressed. While I’ll acknowledge that I will need to revisit this film at some point, my current impression is this: I can recognize the film’s thematic depth, but I see no reason to engage with it. It’s about a weekend get-together at a country estate, but it’s also about classism, a battle between the sexes, romantic jealousy and inaction in the face of growing fascism. Even better, writer-director Jean Renoir uses the film for some then-daring cinematic experiment, moving the camera in ways seldom seen at the time and using every single bit of artistic credit he had at the time. (Which may explain why the film was quickly banned by the Vichy administration and would only resurface in its complete version twenty-five years later.) Alas, I found La règle du jeu meandering, talky, a bit too long and not as focused as I would have liked. There’s a distinct possibility that I may not have been in the most appropriate mood to take it in, so let’s keep that in mind—I’ll try to have another look in a few years.

  • La grande illusion [Grand Illusion] (1937)

    La grande illusion [Grand Illusion] (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, November 2019) As one of the proclaimed great films of all time, there is a lot to like in La grande illusion, but one of the most striking aspects of its success is how it blends surface thrills with much deeper concerns in a package that’s certainly not seamless, but has plenty of material for everyone no matter their level of film or historical literacy. Not only that, but the film delivers everything in ample style—writer-director Jean Renoir being one of the great figures of the French poetic realism movement. At face value, it’s a story about French prisoners of war in a WW1 detention camp, and their escape and flight to neutral territory. So far so good—there’s a compelling narrative to follow right there for those uninterested in deeper material (although the pacing of the film makes it clear that it’s not just a war escape story). But there is plenty of deeper material as well, starting with the kinship between upper-class French and German officers, and an examination of characters in the confined environment of a prisoner-of-war camp. This is where the film scores some of its best moments, some of them shamelessly quoted in later films (such as escape mechanics in The Great Escape, and a defiant rendition of La Marseillaise in Casablanca). Deeper still, however, we get into Renoir’s central themes about the crumbling European upper clauses, and the necessity of humanism even in time of war. It’s not a mean-spirited war movie, nor does it glorify it as an adventure. It does make for an impressive even today—firing on all cylinders, delivering a very controlled film. La grande illusion remains essential for students of cinema. But if you want a real story, dig into the amazing journey of the original film negative during and after World War II—especially since everyone presumed it had been lost.

  • The River (1951)

    The River (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) If you’re looking for the hidden link between French and Indian cinema, look no further than The River, a film for which Jean Renoir went to India and ended up hiring no less than Satyajit Ray as an assistant. The rest, as they say, is history as Ray (who previously worked in advertising) became one of India’s most acclaimed directors. The irony here is that if you stripped off every name from The River, showed it to cinephiles and asked them which of Renoir or Ray made this, many would pick Ray. The River has, for better or for worse, the characteristics of a certain kind of slow meandering classic Indian cinema—starting from the subject matter, which describes a coming-of-age story during the British Raj era. While skillfully made, I’ll admit to my limitations in trying to appreciate the results—this isn’t my kind of cinema, and while I find the Renoir/Ray historical connection fascinating, it doesn’t make the film more interesting to me. That’s fine—considering the number of best-ever-movies lists on which The River figures, it doesn’t need my approval.

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, May 2023) I’m surprisingly happy to report that The River is a lot more interesting a second time around — perhaps thanks to a batter understanding of what the film tries to be about — once you focus on the theme of life, death and rebirth as linked to the meandering, unstoppable flow of a current, a lot of the film comes into much better focus. In hindsight, it’s also easier to appreciate the accessibility of the film: Sure, colour shouldn’t make any difference but compared to a lot of similar movies of the era (or decades later), The River’s terrific colour cinematography makes it a great document of the era. Sure, the perspective on India from a foreigner living there and exploiting local labour may be not be our idea of ideal, but it is a smooth way inside the atmosphere of the time and place, and it is a perspective that you can’t really get any more. The somewhat mean plotting of the film’s last third becomes much more meaningful when you look at it thematically than narratively, and the rather surprising charm of its teenage narration becomes more apparent. I’m glad I ended up revisiting The River — I don’t exactly love it, but I like and respect it well enough this time around.