Word: renoirs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...River. An extraordinary effort from Jean Renoir--one of the most daring films of his career, a lyrical, colorful examination of East meets West, in which he also met ol' Satty Ray, who gave him a hand in the shooting. The tone has been correctly identified as ironic, but the director is involved, not detached, and this gives the film a richness of feeling and intelligence that represents the director well. Incidentally, this film will be screened tonight (Thursday) at Harvard-Epworth Church, just a ways up Mass Avenue and certainly the worthiest film organization in the area...
...finale, in involving us totally. Moreover Allen provides fresh insight into the sources of some of his comedy. The female performances are exquisite especially by Marybeth Hurt, as the youngest daughter in the family. Allen's funniest (intentionally) scene in the film, incidentally, seems a little out of place.JEAN RENOIR...
...Slave of Love had been made in France, it would not hold too many surprises: the movie is yet another variation on that most imitated of film classics, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. But A Slave of Love comes from the Soviet Union, not France, and that single fact casts the film in a startling light. It isn't often that the Soviets export movies that aim to be lyrical, sentimental and commercial. One could sooner imagine Universal Pictures releasing a musical remake of Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky-with or without Sensurround...
Once one gets past the initial shock, A Slave of Love proves to be a decent knockoff. Like Renoir's 1939 film, it offers a moving portrait of a society on the brink of convulsive change. Set just after the 1917 Revolution, the film takes place in pastoral Crimea, where a harried group of actors and moviemakers are trying to complete a frivolous silent melodrama. Hundreds of miles away, the government has fallen to the Bolsheviks, but the film company tries to go doggedly about its business. Inevitably, Slave's characters discover that not even artists can hide...
...little Chekhov-or Gorki-as well. Too many lines are overly explicit ("We're like children forgotten in the nursery of a house on fire"); others recall the parody of Woody Allen's Love and Death ("You are choked by boredom"). Mikhalkov could also use some of Renoir's toughness of mind and poetic genius. The Rules of the Game dared to dissect contemporary France; A Slave of Love is essentially a safe nostalgia piece. Where Renoir merged theme, style and narrative into a seamless whole, Mikhalkov must shift gears as his film moves among its various...