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Maupassant in an impressionistic light, flirtation of rain and sunshine. A Sunday in summer, Parisian shopkeeper (André Gabriello), wife (Jane Marken), daughter (Sylvia Bataille), prospective son-in-law (Paul Temps) and grand-mère (Gabrielle Fontan). Marvels of a pastoral sojourn, blades of grass and critters delight the women, river fish confound the fellows, "a vague sort of yearning" all around. Affable louts at the inn, one raffish (Jacques B. Brunius) and the other melancholy (Georges D'Arnoux), grousing over omelets and conquests ("You'll end up playing hopscotch with the milkman"). Then, the glorious moment: A window opens and the world floods the frame, the maiden on a swing out of Lancret and Fragonard and in luminous orbit. "Nature has not yet revealed all her secrets." Nothing much, just forty minutes that are the supreme carrefour of painting and poetry and cinema orchestrated by Jean Renoir like a vacation with friends. Picnic under the cherry tree, bourgeois dolts rotund and emaciated in hommage à Leo McCarey. The giddily inflamed matron meets her Pan, the vulnerable lass goes bird-watching and gets snared, her trembling eye meets the camera's. Moment perdu, washed away by time and water but forever aching within those affected by it. "Ô fugacité de cette heure... / Oh! qu'il y eût moyen / De m'en garder l'âme pour l'automne qui vient!" (Laforgue) Jacques Becker and Luchino Visconti and Henri Cartier-Bresson behind the scenes, Renoir as the shambling host in anticipation of La Règle du jeu. Serene euphoria into tangible rue, a canvas about innocence swallowed by experience, unfinished yet perfect. Truffaut (Jules and Jim) and Allen (A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy) make valiant attempts, but recapturing the magic is a job for Ray (Days and Nights in the Forest) and Weerasethakul (Blissfully Yours). Cinematography by Claude Renoir. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |