miguel_marques Reviews

Perico ripiao (2003)

Great movie!

[7/10 · 18 February 2005]

I had so much fun watching this movie, I agree is far better than one expects. I am Spanish but lived in DR for a year and a half, even though I am familiar with Dominicans and Dominican slang I don't agree that this movie can only be enjoyed by Dominicans... A Spaniard or, specially, any other Latino can easily follow the thread and maybe he won't understand 100% but the expressions you can figure out even if you've never heard it before!

Filming is not the best ever, but technical problems are compensated with a hilarious acting and a hectic action. They should have watched out better for details, the DHL bag that the girl in the bus carries doesn't look from the 70s...

Great good luck for Múñiz!

Dot the I (2003)

This is just not a good movie

[7 December 2004]

Well, fellows...

LITTLE SPOILER MIGHT BE AHEAD This is just a sentimental twist to "The Game". Blurry characters, foreseeable turns, not good acting at all (except maybe D'Arcy faking he's hurt by the kisses from Natalia to Gael "F*** I'm good!). Not even the two geeks are funny. The parallelism with the Mérimée is just so sad and weak. Natalia Verbeke is gorgeous as always (incredible flamenco dancing), Gael pretty good, but they can do so much better. A black spot on their careers.

I won't watch it a second time.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Funny surrealism that strikes conventions and fashions

[15 December 2000]

The systematic analysis of this film would be in my opinion a gigantic task, since there are so many topics, stories and references intermingled in the chaotic way the surrealists are so fond of. I think the two main topics -sometimes in surrealism there is not even one- are dreams and transgression of social norms and traditions. The film is articulated on linked-up situations: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends and four stories, four dreams which are dreamt by different characters. The suppers are more common in the first part of the film, and the dreams on a second part, but they alternate with each other and with other episodes, like that of the terrorist girl. At the beginning things seem not to turn out good: right the first thing we see is the perplexity of the guests to M. Senechal house when they are told the supper was planned for the next day. 'But that is impossible', says Acosta, 'I couldn't have accepted, tomorrow I'm busy'. Contradiction with no explanation, right the same way as things happens in a dream, where we accept the reality of what we dream without explanations, even if it is impossible or contradictory with something else -dreams are the core of surrealism and of this film. This baffling beginning really impressed me. There is contradiction and kind of a difficulty to do things in every single detail in the next sequence: Mme and M Senechal are invited to dine out, but she has to change. The restaurant 'n'a pas l'air gai', and the door is locked. They knock and they are invited in. The owners have changed. There is no people and the prices are cheap. Everything is suspicious. And then the first punch of the story: the manager died that afternoon and the wake has been set in the dining room since the undertaker has not yet arrived. Of course, the bourgeois leave. This is the first reference to death, a constant theme either in surrealism, in dreams and in this film. It seems as if the whole film was a dream. Within the context things are logical and normal -or seem logical and normal- to the characters, and their reactions are 'contextually' logical too, but from the outside the stories in the film are as odd as any dream we can have. E.g., when Acosta shoots the terrorist girl from his window, or when the army appeared at M. Senechal's house, or even when the bishop tells M Senechal that he wants to be the family gardener. They are baffled, but they accept the things that happen, as we are baffled by or dreams but accept their logic when we are dreaming. Social transgression is based on a subtle but scorning parody of the bourgeois class and their customs and beliefs. The bourgeois are classy, and conceited: they show off their vain culinary knowledge every time they host a supper. M. Thevenot boasts that 'discreet charm' of the bourgeois when he subtly makes fun of the chauffeur: he does not know how to drink a Martini. Later on, Acosta cheats on Thevenot when he tells him that he has to show his wife the 'sursiks'. Thevenot does not know what that is, but he is an hypocrite not to say it. The bourgeois are also extremely fond of the lowest vices and they enjoy them gaily -I do not think, on the other side, that Buñuel is condemning them, but the hypocritical attitude of the bourgeoisie. Drug trafficking and consumption, lust, alcohol. The commentaries about the younger girl vomiting and dirty nails and her ignorance (the complex of Euclides, she says at some point) point out -and laugh at- the hypocrisy in the values of the middle-high classes. Also the Church and the Army are criticized. The Bishop, a main head of the Church, is humble -a extremely acid irony- but will mercilessly kill a poor man that will die anyway -that adds to the cruelty. The Bishop is also ignorant: he does not know where the Republic of Miranda is. The soldiers and officers smoke marihuana and praise it, they even are connoisseurs! -'Mexico or Congo?', the general asks, referring to the origins of the product.. The dreams come over mainly in the second part of the film. Both the two first of them are dreamt by soldiers. I really enjoyed them. In the first one I see a little bit of a reference of the life in Spain on the times when Buñuel was a kid -I do not know Buñuel's early life in Spain, but I presume there could be some autobiography. The looks of the parents of the young soldier, their clothes and the strict, militarist attitude of the father made me think of the Spanish family life in the turn of the century XIX to XX. I also liked the second dream. The dark and blurry street and house and the background noise make a great dreamy scene. In this dream, the soldier meets a dead friend. Then another friend comes over, and makes him realize that it is impossible. Sometimes in real dreams this happens too. Something happens and then, with no explanation, we realize that is impossible. It also should be pointed out that these two dreams share two primal human topics: motherly feelings and fear to death. The topic of death is present in some other dreams: the general's, in which Acosta shoots him dead; or the dream about the ghost of the sergeant. Another primal fear is dealt with in Senechal's dream: shame. They are caught in a theater stage while they are having dinner -this is a recurrent dream that sometimes takes other forms: being naked in the middle of the street or lying on your bed wearing you pajamas in your classroom. I also found humor all over the film: funny situations such as the bishop offering himself as a gardener, or the straws in M. and Mme. Senechal hair. Acosta playing tricks on Thevenot, or the soldiers happily smoking joints and listening to a 'sympa' dream. But I do not know if Buñuel is trying to be funny or only to transgress. And that transgression is hilarious because it reveals the hypocrisy of society.

Jules and Jim (1962)

Truffaut takes love stories to its summit

[15 December 2000]

There are many elements in this film that made me enjoy it in a special way. Objectively, I admire Truffaut techniques and the greatness of the script, but there are also personal circumstances that made me particularly enjoy certain aspects of the film. I will talk later about this. The first thing about this film is the noticeable evolution of Truffaut, either in his technique and in the stories he tells. I do not know if it is an evolution in his style, a step ahead or an experiment, but I see many changes from Les quatre-cents coups, which compared to Jules et Jim seems to me innocent, sweet, very different in style and intention.

In general, we could think that Truffaut has plunged into the New Wave cinema taking many elements either from Godard and Resnais (at least elements we have seen in À bout de souffle and Hiroshima, mon amour). From Godard he takes a revolutionary approach of camera. We do not see as many floating, 'ghostly', traveling between characters as in Les quatre-cents coups, but quick, broken sequences, much more in Godard's style. The scene when Catherine's dress burns is remarkable: images run into each other, overlap, throng, just as the memories of an intense personal experience. The camera also goes on crazy close-ups -like the look of a baby looking for something- or traveling: I particularly enjoyed the one following Catherine in the race over the bridge, we could feel her breathing! Truffaut even plays with us: the camera -us- searches the ground looking for objects in the countryside: a cup, a peak, cigars. There is even a hidden wink which I think is most difficult to notice: there is a scene which is shown backwards; when the narrator is saying in the countryside house that Jim had noticed something was wrong between Jules and Catherine, we might notice that something is wrong with the image too. Last things happen first. If we look into it, we see Jim and Jules playing dominoes. But they do not put the pieces on the center of the table, they take them away from it. After that, there is a traveling rightwards; we can see the girl and Catherine: but they move oddly, they nod too sharply, specially Catherine. Just as if the scene was shown from the end to the beginning. Finally, there are some other new resources that Truffaut makes use of, like stills -of a great beauty and emotiveness-, subtitles (at the end) or black fades. If technically Truffaut owes in this film to À bout de souffle, I think he takes some things from Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour as far as contents are concerned. Although not as a poetical script as Marguerite Duras', the film by Truffaut is crammed full with literary references: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Baudelaire, Goethe -Les affinités électives, a book on the topic of sharing lovers-, even Picasso or the Chinese drama. The story is not a magnificent poem like Resnais but a magnificent love saga. Indeed, it is a great love story, in which we find all elements to be found in any love story: passion, sadness, jealous, etc. But Truffaut mixes it altogether and puts it in a single love story, a love triangle with a femme fatale and two best friends. An explosive combination that will turn up in a story with hundreds of twists and turns, thanks to Catherine's instability. Truffaut makes many different love stories happen in only one, or maybe makes a life long love story happen in a single year. This dense storytelling is made agile by the great idea of the narrator, which I enjoyed most. However, it is a counterpoint to the rest of the film, it is not a poetic voice at all, but an analytical, cold, shocking one. This film is also much about translation: both characters -and Catherine too- seem to know perfectly the language of the other, and they keep challenging each other with puns and translations, indeed both of them work as translators at some time, and Truffaut remarks in their comments the difficulty and beauty of this job; this is the part I personally enjoyed as I am a translator myself.

Breathless (1960)

An aesthetic and stylish avant-garde masterpiece

[15 December 2000]

À bout de souffle is an extremely complicated film. We could tackle its analysis form different points of view, although I think the most interesting is that of the aesthetic evolutions of Godard's cinema.

We will begin however by talking about the story and characters of the film. Truffaut collaborated with Godard writing an everyday story about a sexy scrounger and criminal played by Belmondo that turns out to be the story of his last days. In this story is strongly implicated an American girl, the object of Michel Poiccard' s passion and an important key for the development of the story, as well as some other side characters that act as a background. The story of Poiccard's chase and death is just an excuse to put a dramatic end to a series of situations in which the main character finds himself and in which Truffaut's script twists and turns and aesthetic art by Godard find their way. I do not find any specially interesting characteristic of the story, except maybe for the context in which it takes place: Paris in the late 50s, and the bohemian and charming life of an American student and a French rogue together. Characters are a step ahead. Although they star in a common story, they are amazingly complex and rich, and so is the relationship between them. Michel and Patricia are the only two main characters and their relationship is the real core of the film. I would say there is a lot of surrealism in the way they act, talk and react. Both of them, but specially Michel, act like children, their humor go up and down and sprinkle incoherent and confused comments. The long 27-minute take in Patricia's bedroom shows us a dazzling conversation in which both characters change positions, play around (covering themselves with the blankets, , for example), talk about trivialities (the posters, the ashtrays) or really deep things (Faulkner thoughts) and pull faces and do body language (the lips gestures or the mocking faces in the mirror). This, together with the action expression by Godard about which we will talk later, make this scene quite interesting. Although it is so long, it is not boring. As we have said before in the scene they talk about many different things, but action spins around a core topic: sex. Michel desires Patricia and turns around her like an animal, but a charming one. I like how sex is treated with ambiguity: let us remember the first scene in which Michel visits the script girl: they have most probably had a relationship before and she is getting changed in front him, a sexually-appealing scene when she is backwards. However, nothing happens, Godard only wants to insinuate. Another beautiful and sensual image is that in Patricia's room: when she just arrives, Michel is lying on the bed, looking at her, and she opens the window and we can see her silhouette against the light from the street. Godard goes on with ambiguous scenes, and he shows us the first kiss between Michel and Patricia, but we do not know if it has been a real kiss or not, it is kind of unreal. We will later realize that they have had sex. Thus, we have Michel, a machist but charming man obsessed with Patricia, and we have Patricia, the American girl, extremely beautiful and tempting, she is independent but also weak. She is more complicated as a character than Michel is. She is not sure: she makes out with the American journalist, shows resistance to Michel but finally yields, however, she does not know if she loves him. And when she feels a little bit pressured by the police, she gives him away. There is another character I liked: the writer that is interviewed in the airport: he states controversial opinions about love, women and life which I cannot help connecting with Michel's way of life. Maybe we could take this writer as an intellectual alter ego of him? In fact, Patricia seems very interested in him.

What I most enjoyed in the film was the vanguard treatment that Godard gives to action. I firstly thought of a kind of audiovisual cubism. Cubism in painting shows reality deconstructed in many different sights of a same object. In his film, Godard breaks up space a temporal continuity to show us what he wants us to see. This has amazing aesthetic effects. He uses it in the car trips: Michel's car and the taxi, to give a sensation of movement, of travel. At the end, there is a moment when Michel interrupts her talking, and the continuity is also interrupted, giving a very vivid effect. Finally, camera movements are as excellent as those of Godard's comrade in the New Wave, Truffaut. Particularly amazing is a 720 degree turn of the camera in the scene where the French policeman first talks to Patricia in the store.

The 400 Blows (1959)

A magnificent tale about childhood and the quest for liberty, masterfully shot

[15 December 2000]

Les quatre-cents coups is the film that opens up the New Wave movement. I think many of the characteristics of the New Wave -as pointed out in class- can be inferred form the differences between the last film we saw in class, Carné's Les enfants du paradis, and this work by Truffaut: real life situations, no sets, everyday people. I have found in Les quatre-cents coups a brand new, refreshing and overwhelming cinema. But Les quatre-cents coups is also a dense, complicated film. Its autobiographical character makes it an encyclopedia of personal feelings, opinions and nuances of an introspection by Truffaut.

Technically, the main differences between Truffaut and the previous cinema is the use of camera movements and angles. Although Renoir had made a witty and fresh use of traveling and long takes, Truffaut masters this technique as anyone else does. The camera moves smoothly, it nearly swings or floats from angle to angle following an action, as if the spectator was a ghost amid real life. Truffaut enjoys playing around with the camera: extremely long takes as we have never seen in any of the previous films: some of them in the classroom, other in Antoine's friend house, or a magnificent take at the end of the film in which we see Antoine, then a panoramic view and then Antoine again, running towards the sea. He also shoots from impossible angles, like those at the beginning from below the Tour Eiffel, or the nearly zenithal take following the jogging students in the streets. Or he teases us with the fake black out, when Antoine goes down the stairs to throw away garbage. Or shows us inner feelings through close-ups: the scene in which Antoine lies to his father telling him he did not take his map.

However, I think that the most important difference between previous films and this one is the treatment of action. Truffaut is an observer, a photographer of soul. He takes a fiendish delight in shooting casual, long scenes: the boy tearing away his notebook pages; the whole sequence of Antoine's arrival at his empty home is excellent: the three reflexes in his mother's mirror -in which she will look afterwards, or Antoine combing his hair, laying the table. Also the spinning ride, or the long traveling following the escape of Antoine. They are long, but not slow. They keep tension up, as if everyday acts and decisions could be heroic and transmit the greatest interest and attraction. It looks like a documentary on human life! Some comments could be made about Antoine Doinel, alter ego of Truffaut. He is a very complicated character. The most curious thing about him is that he behaves like an adult: he acts, walks and talks like a man -especially if we compare him to his teachers or his father! However, at some times I think Truffaut describes himself as being not too witty: remember the candle in the hole on the wall, or how his friend convinces him to steal the typewriter and then makes him give it back, or how he innocently copies a whole paragraph from Balzac. He wants to be an artist, but he is not -not yet. This lack of wit and fatality -he is caught but everyone around him cheats as he does- leads him to a rebellion that grows stronger and stronger. This explain why he is such a rebel and not his friend, or the other children in the class, who live in the same social group.

The main topic in Les quatre-cents coups is the quest for freedom, but not in the way Renoir looked at it, in fact is closer to L'Atalante by Vigo than to Renoir's La grande illusion, for example. Renoir is more concerned by social struggle and the liberty of the people. But Truffaut is more introspective, more intimate: indeed this film is the description of life attitude of an independent spirit through the autobiographical look of the author -this is cinéma d'auteur. We can find many elements from Truffaut's life in the film: a difficult family situation, problems at school, the Army, etc. These elements will appear throughout the film. Antoine, alter ego of Truffaut lives in the school, in his house, in the streets and finally in the juvenile detention center. In each one of these places he will find adverse situations he will have to overcome.

The school The school is the first oppressing environment for Antoine. At the very beginning he is caught, by chance, with a pin-up calendar. This fatality will be recalled in Antoine's life later or -when he is caught by the porter giving the typewriter back, having been his friend's idea to steal it. He is a rebel, and nothing will refrain him from being so. He is punished, and he misbehaves again, writing in the wall an inspired poem. The school is the only place in which Truffaut makes a little bit of criticism, in this case against the education system: the three teachers are either cruel (the French teacher) or stupid (the English and Physical Education teachers).

The house The house situation might be similar to that lived by Truffaut in real life. Her mother, a beautiful, egocentric and unscrupulous woman -sometimes sad, and old looking- who hates him. At the end of the film we discover that she did not want that child. This hatred and the attitude of his father -a smiley and cheerful but weak man- will add to the necessity of Antoine to flee. Truffaut gives us a Freudian wink: when his teacher asks him why he missed school, Antoine will sharply answer: 'My mom died!'

The streets In the streets Antoine will find freedom, challenge, adulthood but also perversion: he becomes a man in a 13-year old boy body, little by little. But he will also become a criminal; together with his friend they will climb up in the scale of crime. He first skips classes. He and his friend stroll around the city, innocently. Then they begin an adult, abnormally rebel behavior: they make cars stop in the middle of the street, for example. The spinning ride is one of the few symbolic images in the film -that is another difference with Vigo and Renoir filmmaking. The scene of Antoine trying without success to fight against centrifuge force in a mad spinning trip really shocked me: he fights against reality and he is suffering, but he also has fun in it. Afterwards, he leaves home. . He will learn about solitude and indeed not a single word is heard in a long sequence. I really enjoyed the long, silent scene of the milk robbery. Antoine runs outlaw like an animal, we can feel loneliness, cold, hunger, sleepiness. It is another of those long, slow but at the same time agile scenes about casual acts: drinking a bottle of milk. At the end, the streets will make him a criminal. From the moment he is caught on, he is not treated as a child anymore. He wants to be an adult, and a spell will sort of be cast on him: he will be treated as such. It is significant when he is caught by the porter. He is told not to take off the hat, which made him look like an adult. From then on, he is treated roughly as if he was a man, especially in the police station.

The prison And finally he arrives at the prison, which I think is the climax of oppression -we must remember the comparisons to the Army Truffaut detests. It is maybe the simplest of the scenarios, he find himself facing what he hates with no other possibility. The ending is a sublime anticlimax. After being punished for eating the bread, Antoine goes on 'normal' life within the detention center: he visits the psychologist -an ultimate introspection by Truffaut-, receives his mother and talk to his new friends and plays soccer. And suddenly, when we least expect it, he flees. He runs, runs, runs, the longest run I have ever seen, and the most exciting. He reaches the sea: his dream, and a symbol for eternity and absolute in poetry. He splashes into the water, he stops and looks back; the first time he looks right into the camera. This has got undoubtedly a deep and very personal meaning that maybe only the author knows. It is a pessimistic or an optimistic ending? I think it is above all an out-of-this-world ending. If the simple presence of the sea, Antoine's object of liberty, is overwhelming for the spectator, how should the character feel? I really liked the final traveling: we follow Antoine's run over the sand, but the camera is facing the inland, we are waiting to see the sea as much as Antoine is waiting to wet his feet. I do not really think that he is deceived, although his look into the camera is ambiguous. I think he stares at the spectator because he has realized what the truth is: the character is now out of the film. And the truth for him, I think, is this: I can reach freedom whenever I want, but absolute freedom is impossible to achieve. He is staring at us, but he is also looking back with a grave look: he might have seen his pursuer in the distance.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Deep, beautiful, devastating, extremely personal cinema

[15 December 2000]

In my previous paper I said that À bout de souffle was an extremely complicated movie. Well, if we compare it to Resnais' Hiroshima, mon amour, it just seems to be a skilled aesthetic exercise. I think Resnais takes a further step in modern cinema intermingling influences from surrealism, modernism and the New Wave of French cinema: intimate topics, deep and changing characters, oneirism, unclear limits between reality and mind. His movie is a skilled masterpiece that really needs to be seen twice since its symbolism and action are extremely interwoven. Personally, I felt somewhat frustrated the first time I saw it. Indeed, I find that Resnais style in this film is too extreme in some ways. He twists action and mixes reality with memories in a way that makes the spectator lose his/her way once and again. On top of that, most usually action is extremely slow -quite the contrary of his colleague Godard- and takes are extremely long. Truffaut did shoot this kind of scenes, but his were also agile, attractive. Resnais is slow, exasperating, boring. We must think however that Hiroshima mon amour is a literary film, a long shot poem. The script is a literary work of art by Marguerite Duras. Indeed, dialogs are like lines in a poem, rhythmically broken, slow, as if they were declaimed instead of simply said. Resnais complements this poetry inserting strongly lyric scenes of the Japanese people and the city of Hiroshima and playing around with meaningful light, as we will see later. In my opinion, the main topic of this film is memories and how a forgotten dark past can shape our present and determine our future. Basically, the film tells the story of a woman who has gone through a painful experience in his youth: she loved a German soldier during the occupation of Nevers, her hometown in France. This caused despise from her family and her community. This is a story that she has not told ever before. But an affair with a Japanese man while she shoots a film in Hiroshima will wake up her memories. The Japanese man recalls her of her first love; let us remember for instance, when she remembers the German man hand when she sees the Japanese's -both of them have a similar hair style and color. At some point in the film, the Japanese will grow more interested in her life in Nevers -he thinks the key to win her love is there- and this will unleash harsh flashbacks in the French woman's memories. She has never told anyone: as she talks out, articulates her memories -while they are at the bar- she will experience very strong feelings. We cannot differentiate what she was feeling at the moment of the story or what she is feeling now, what is a fact and what is a memory. I find very interesting the scene in which they sit together at the bar: at some point she takes the Japanese man for her old love. She begins talking to him as if he was so. Her memories take her over and she talks what she feels, what she remembers. Light effects are magical: she is drowned in brightness while the Japanese man stays in the dark. She talks and talks and Resnais inserts the necessary flashback images. The Japanese at that moment acts as the voice of her own memory: he asks her once and again. Until a point when she suffers so dramatically that the Japanese man, the real one, slaps her in her face to wake her up. Now we find a sharp kind of awakening. While she talked everything was silent. Now, everything sound as what it is: a bar with people chattering and frogs in the dark stream outside. There are four main elements in the film that spin around the life of the French girl, whose name we do not know. Two cities: Nevers and Hiroshima. And two men: the German soldier and the Japanese man. There is a whole system of connections between these four elements in the center of which is her. Resnais uses the powerful image of Hiroshima, the sadness of the place and grief of the people to identify the sadness and grief of the Frecn girl at Nevers. On the other side, the Japanese man reminds her of the German soldier. There is not an exact parallelism between the two cities or the two men, but connections can be made. We must remember the images of the streets in Hiroshima and the images of Nevers -la Place de la République, the churches-, flowing at the same time. The beautiful but empty Loire, the dead fields of Hiroshima. Although we can see some parallelism between the two cities, Resnais ends up the film with a scene in which this relationship seems to be much stronger. 'Toi, ton nom est Hiroshima. - Et toi, ton nom est Nevers, en France'. However, I cannot figure out what is the exact relationship between the two cities: maybe a comparison between grief in the memory and actual grief in the present day. Whatever way it might be, Resnais leaves for us a cryptic, dark ending that we would have to figure out the best we can depending on the elements he has given us in the film.

Children of Paradise (1945)

A gigantic love saga

[15 December 2000]

Les enfants du paradis is the masterpiece of the duet Carré-Prévert. Although I did not enjoy it as much as Renoir' s work, it must be said of course that it is one of the biggest and most ambitious and most elaborate films ever made in France. Technically I was amazed by the huge sets of the beginning representing the city of Paris in the XIX century (le boulevard du Temple) and set in Nice, and the camera movements within the crowd. We have indeed to take into account the awful conditions in which the film was shot: under occupied France and in co-production with an Italian company that retired when Sicily was occupied, in the mid-shooting. (Colin Crisp) Les enfants du paradise is for me a magnificent, huge story; it is for the cinema what Balzac and Victor Hugo were for literature in the XIX century; not only French, but the world's. A colossal masterpiece with a desperately long, elaborate plot and well-defined powerful characters that confront each other trying to find out in their intercourse the answer to metaphysical questions about love and life between fantasy and reality, just as Armes suggests. Les enfants du paradis boasts an entire collection of characters that make up a twisted action as a result of the confrontation of their personal characteristics. Baptiste Deburau, a real-life mime of the XIX century is the main character. As pointed out in class, many Freudian interpretations have been made about this character: he is weak, he is unable to reach his desires (Garance), he does not want to accept the love he already has (the girl who desperately loves him), he is not a hero, but the very opposite: someone who deserves the pity of the spectator; but also that of Garance and that of his public: when he acts as a mime, the character (as usual) is always chased by fatality and sadness. He even wanted to commit sucide! Garance is a simple woman, as she says in the film. She is ambiguous. Some (the Cinemania magazine in Spain, for example) see her as a prostitute (remember the place where she used to work, her flair, or the strange character she was with and who accused her of stealing his watch -a client, a pimp?). Whatever she may be, she is a lonely woman looking for a lonely love. The four main characters of the film are in love with her, but in a different way each. Each one takes her in the way they want her to be -we see her in the arms of Lemaitre or the Count as though she was two different persons-, except for Baptiste, who at the end of the film will realize and chase his true love -although we do not know what happens at the end. Lemaitre is the man, the Don Juan, the witty, attractive and winning beloved artist. He is proud of himself and his public is proud of him. He provides some talented moments of witty puns or funny, twisted scenes -like the one in the theatre. But there are two things that he cannot obtain: absolute art, in his own opinion only Baptiste has the genius; and absolute love, Garance, who she will love but only one night. However, he can manage it all, he is a scrounger and he will still enjoy his life as it comes. Lacenaire is an ominous, dark mixture of Lemaitre and Baptiste. He is proud as Lemaitre but triumph has cheated him -he is completely awkward as a writer. And he is resentful and sad as Baptiste. These two lead him into violence against his love, Garance and against the Count -I really enjoyed the scene of the murder: the close-up and the grimace of Avril- which can also. The murder can also be taken as a rebellion of the resentful lower classes against the upper classes: the image of the fallen, dead hand with the valuable ring is significant. The count is a symbol for the upper classes: childish (his hairstyle, his expression are those of a young boy), whimsical, materialist, stuck-up, posh, he thinks he can achieve the love of Garance thanks to his influences (he saves her from the police) and wealth (notice the rich veil Garance wears at the beginning of L'homme blanc. But he will lose everything by hands of Lacenaire. Finally, I liked the character of the girl who is in love with Baptiste. She really reminds me of Éponine form Les Misérables by Hugo, the unrequited young girl in love with Marius, the main character. She wanders alone through the film, seeking the love of Baptiste, without success. And she plays the lead in one of the most bitter scenes in the film, about which we will talk later.

The main topics in the film are love on one side and life between fantasy and reality on the other. Love is always present in various forms. A passionate love by Lemaitre, a platonic love by Baptiste, an unrequited love by the girl who loves him, a love bought with money, by the Count, a violent love, by Lacenaire. But Carné and Prévert really want to show that only a true, pure and simple love will prevail. That is the love Garance seeks and that only Baptiste will be able to give her at some point. 'Love is so simple' is one of the climax phrases, containing the key of love in the movie will first pronounced by Garance and later by Baptiste. However, there are some other bitter moments on the dark side of love: at the end of the film, when Garance flees and Baptiste chases her, his wife will stand alone, in the middle of the room, still. The camera will stay with her, and we can see her reaction, that of a little child so suddenly and badly struck by betrayal. 'What about me?' So simple words that however struck me. There is in the movie a constant game between life and theatre. This has a lead role throughout both parts of the movie. We can see gorgeous and funny sketches by Baptiste (right at the beginning, when he meets Garance, and later on his performances), and burlesque or sublime representations by Lemaitre. And in general a whole bunch of characters form the theater life will show off in the movie, and theater life itself can be seen in a close-up: the owner of the theater des Funambuls, the three authors (victims of a bitter criticism and humor), the side characters. However, the climax of this close relationship between theater and life arrives in the scene where Lemaitre, who knows he can do whatever he wants on a stage, as he is a superstar, strays from the script and begins fooling around. He goes out to the stalls and then action bends over itself, and does not depend on the authors any longer: the double game actor-spectator, fiction-reality reflexes itself in a witty dance. And Lemaitre leads us in the confusion, what is real and what is not?. And that confusion is so funny for the public; and is also illicit, but Lemaitre is allowed to do anything within a theater. There is another moment where the characters of life (Garance, Lameitre and co.) long for being public again. At the beginning of the second part, Garance tells Lemaitre about the 'children of paradise', that is 'les enfants du paradis'. They are so poor, so happy, so irresponsible, up there in the cheapest seats! Just like children, as the title of the movie says. And Garance misses that, she misses that time of her life when she did not have anything to do with the Count or with the rich veil that covers her face. And the drawing from the cover of the film is meaningful too: the children of paradise sitting and watching the rest of characters, as if they were real characters in a play. And all the characters are just watching the center around which all action spins: their either beloved or hated Garance.

The Rules of the Game (1939)

Visionary, critic, acidly hilarious, masterfully shot

[15 December 2000]

In my opinion, this is a more complicated and innovative, modern film than La grande illusion, although personally I did not enjoy it as much as the latter. On a preliminary analysis of the contents, a main topic may be recognized: a fierce criticism of the French society of the time. Renoir himself described it as a 'precise description of the bourgeoisie of our age' and as a 'etude de moeurs or comedy of manners' . We also find some other topics subtly approached and amalgamated within the first one: futility of life as theatre (a topic once and again tackled since the classics), fear to war and social demands. We will thoroughly analyze these topics and to do so we will follow the structure suggested by Vanoye , who pointed out a division in three acts -the film is inspired by Alfred de Musset: the first act would include the action in Paris; the second one, form the arrival to La Coliniere to the beginning of the party, which would mark the beginning of the third act . And I would add a finale at the very final three or four minutes of the film, when Jurieu is shot dead. Action through these three acts makes up a most complicated plot with up and downs, sharp turns from dull drama to vain comedy, acid irony or overwhelming tragedy: gossiping, whimsical characters, bliss, jealousy and murder, all wisely mixed up by Jean Renoir. Before talking about this, I would like to comment a little bit on the modernity of this movie. We are no longer before an old film which from time to time shines in modernity, but before an already present-day film showing some oldies moments, in my opinion. Some scenes are treated ingenuously, for instance , the fights or the car accident. Both of them would seem nowadays to have been filmed by an amateur. Besides, the images of the rabbits running away may have been the first wildlife documentary in the history of cinema. Of course, the talkies go on taking advantage of their possibilities and theater, music or puppets sketches are galore. Technically, we can check out the mastery of Renoir in this film again. He keeps making a profuse use of very long and deep takes, with a great ability but not abusing. And even he contrasts them with short, sharp takes at the entr'acte, the hunting scene. The sequence in La Coliniere is excellent: deep and long scenes, characters going in and out; diagonals, traveling, tilting, scenes that begin with one character and end up crammed with people (the arrival of Jurieu, that I enjoyed quite a lot), scenes which are shot in different moments and from different angles, but showing the same action. And all of these -together with stereotyped dialogues as Zants remarks- in order to evoke agitation, vanity, madness: a symbol for the absurdity of the theater of life; of social life in France at the 30s. Indeed, this is one of the main topics. As Vanoye (1995) points out, the political situation and social improvements in France after World War I had given birth to an optimism that led to debauchery in society -just as happened in the USA- the best symbol of which is the lavish party at La Coliniere. Also Jeancolas talks about 'un basculement vers la violence stupide d'une societe qui a trop triche avec les sentiments'. We find ourselves among amoral ladies -let us remember the scenes at the beginning of the film: Christine and Lisette talk about playing around with men and sex, and cheating-, vain messieurs and, above all, hypocrites: the image of Christine with La Chesnaye in front of a mirror, a metaphor for a double life and a double lie; or her speech in front of everyone when she boasts about being important to Jurieu's deed when she did not even go to the airport to welcome him. Renoir tries to show that we are characters in a great play, and specially in that country and at that time. In fact, as we said before, this is a film inspired by a theater play and even meets the theatrical requirements of unity of action, time and place. And more parallelisms can be drawn between this film and theater. Characters are divided in two groups, as Armes states: the bourgeoisies and the proletarians with Octave as a roue tournante, just like in classical theater where there were two social levels with parallel actions. Faulkner (1986) points out the two love triangles (La Chesnaye-Christine-Jurieu and Marceau-Lisette-Schumacher). In this play within the play, social conventions play the role of the author, giving norms and scripts for the actors, the rules of the game that will be broken and this will make the comedy of our life turn into drama or tragedy. Or maybe it is those rules which ruin life! Anyhow, the party thus turns into a burlesque comedy shaded with drama or tragedy, the climax of which being the show where Death fools the guests to the sound of the Dance Macabre by Camille de Saint-Saens, a reference of futility of life and maybe to the massacres that Renoir had witnessed in World War I and that he was fearing again. However, music, art and bliss are effective. From this moment on, illicit couples gather together and disappear in the middle of the action. This part of the comedy seems to me as a precursor of the American situation comedies of the 50's. I really liked the scene in which Octave finds himself alone, trapped in his own bearskin. It is as though the author wanted to stop the mess but he were trapped within his own character: a stupid bear. Another double game. Genevieve gets drunk and turns up screaming truths. Someone asks 'Get this comedy stopped!' 'Which one?' he is answered. Action is exhausting. 'What an evening!' The various stories come to a resolution and the show comes to an end: all give up their characters and now enemies love each other. Armes (1985) talks about 'incongruously linked characters brought together: La Chesnaye's wife and his mistress discussing his faults, Marceau and the gamekeeper musing on life when both think Lisette is cheating them, or Octave confessing to Christine that his friendship towards her is something more'. Thus, La Chesnaye and Jurieu are reconciled, the same as Schumacher and Marceau. But the final blow, the climax of gloomy irony arrives: the fatidic jacket swap -theatre inside the theatre-, that is, breaking the rules of the game again by looking wrong, will put a stupid end to Jurieu's life, he who was meant to be a hero. Another most important omnipresent topic is fear of war. Renoir was quite aware of this topic on his previous film La grande illusion. Indeed, La regle du jeu was released only two months before the war actually began. Some years before, Renoir had already feared a rebirth of a violent Germany. Maybe one of the symbols of this mistrust is Schumacher, an enemy of Marceau the poor poacher, violent, relentless, with a German name and born in Alsace, a region long disputed between France and Germany. Another symbol for war is the hunt for rabbits, a merciless massacre in the very fields where maybe French soldiers fought years before or maybe where they would be fighting only some months after. Right at the beginning of the film we find references to a hero, Andre Jurieu; although a civil flyer, he is a symbol for war excellence and pride of the people. Paradoxically, he is not happy, he feels insecure, he needs Christine and he does not want to know anything about pride or national grandeur. He, in fact, is an anti-hero. He acts as a kid, he longs for a woman and not for honor. But when Christine is boasting about her role in his deed, he will not say a word. And I also noticed a detail: when they go hunting, he is carrying the rifle upside-down, just as if fighting was the last thing he would like to face. Finally, social struggle and differences are again remarked in Renoir's filmmaking. The proletarian class is represented by Marceau, Lisette and the rest of the servants. The scene of the arrival to La Coliniere shocked me: a diagonal line drawn by the stairway; on top of it, the rich, the powerful, scorning and shouting at the employees in a threatening manner. However, Lisette will fall in love with Marceau and that will start a 'class struggle' between him and Schumacher. They belong to the same class, but Schumacher is a symbol of capital authority, and of how capital makes use of the proletarians -we must remember that he is a guardian, the keeper of game that Marceau used to poach to get a life. Williams is clear about calling the film anti-bourgeoisie and anti-military and points out some examples of ironic or laugh-provoking attacks: the hypochondriacal lady who only chatters about her husband's factory and who despises -because she has not idea about it- pre-Hispanic American cultures and the general who cheers the death of Jurieu's thinking he has been shot by order of La Chesnaye on jealousy. The proletarians are the only who sometimes can see the mess from outside the mess, and have a different, realistic and ironic view of the party. When he is given the recipes for the glamorous old lady, the cook will react sharply: 'I am okay with diets. But I am not cooking extravagances'.