A mild mannered bank clerk, in a loveless marriage to a harridan, has one pleasure in life - painting. One night a chance encounter results in an unlikely friendship with a much younger woman, who he begins to help financially. He develops strong feelings for her and believes they are in a relationship, unaware that she is a prostitute who is still sleeping with her pimp boyfriend, the man she actually loves. The clerk gives her some of his paintings to decorate the apartment he pays for her to live in, which the pimp then sells on to an art dealer under the pretence they are works by an imaginary American artist called Clara Wood; they soon become highly sought after items. It isn't long before events take a tragic turn.
This early French talkie from famed director Jean Renoir proved to be highly controversial in its day primarily on account of its conclusion which offered unorthodox justice in which bad deeds were not shown to be punished and a man innocent of the crime of murder is sentenced to death for it anyway. This kind of immorality was not par for the course, particularly in the United States, where the film was only finally given a release in 1975. Bookended with a Punch and Judy show, with the puppets arguing with each other over what the film is about, this is a film which challenges the viewer from the off. Its characters all inhabit morally grey areas, with the central character guilty of murder, his wife overbearing and deeply unpleasant, her ex-husband who she idolises turns out to be a deceitful waster, the girl who the clerk falls for essentially uses him, while her boyfriend is a violent abuser of women. There are no good guys in this story at all, with most of them actively deceiving one and other. I think it shows that the French were unafraid of making films which did not pander to easy stereotypes and moral certainties. It also deals with its sexual material with a typical Gallic shrug and overall has a pretty sophisticated approach to adult orientated material. Once it moves into its latter stages there is a murder sequence which is presented in a cleverly subtle manner which Fritz Lang or Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of. Its overall a fascinating example of the kinds of uncompromising films which existed in the early sound era before Hollywood morals got in the way of adult film-making.
This early French talkie from famed director Jean Renoir proved to be highly controversial in its day primarily on account of its conclusion which offered unorthodox justice in which bad deeds were not shown to be punished and a man innocent of the crime of murder is sentenced to death for it anyway. This kind of immorality was not par for the course, particularly in the United States, where the film was only finally given a release in 1975. Bookended with a Punch and Judy show, with the puppets arguing with each other over what the film is about, this is a film which challenges the viewer from the off. Its characters all inhabit morally grey areas, with the central character guilty of murder, his wife overbearing and deeply unpleasant, her ex-husband who she idolises turns out to be a deceitful waster, the girl who the clerk falls for essentially uses him, while her boyfriend is a violent abuser of women. There are no good guys in this story at all, with most of them actively deceiving one and other. I think it shows that the French were unafraid of making films which did not pander to easy stereotypes and moral certainties. It also deals with its sexual material with a typical Gallic shrug and overall has a pretty sophisticated approach to adult orientated material. Once it moves into its latter stages there is a murder sequence which is presented in a cleverly subtle manner which Fritz Lang or Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of. Its overall a fascinating example of the kinds of uncompromising films which existed in the early sound era before Hollywood morals got in the way of adult film-making.