After landing on the Bourget airfield, André Jurieu (Roland Toutain) is celebrated like the French Lindberg by a cheerful crowd, a radio reporter, political representatives and his best friend Octave (Jean Renoir) but his joy instantly fades into bitterness when he realizes his beloved Christine is missing. André publicly shares his sorrow, calling her a liar, a move Octave will deem as puerile.
The genius opening of Renoir's "Rules of the Game", made at the dawn of World War 2, less establishes the titular rules than one who's not part of it. André is the ultimate romantic, risking his life for a woman and embodying this magnificent saying from romantic writer Lamartine's: "One person is missing and the whole word seems depopulated". There's no place for romanticism in Renoir's masterpiece that borrows more from "The Marriage of Figaro", written by Marivaux. Marivaux gave his name to the French term: marivaudage, meaning 'little games of love', like a lighthearted way to call gallantries. The film even sets the tone by opening with Marivaux' lines: "If Cupid was given wings, was it not to flitter?"
And boy, will Cupid flitter. I defy anyone to find a movie with as many layers of love and potential romances, you wouldn't even guess who'd end up with whom. To make it simple, there is only André and another schmuck of 'exclusive' heart: the gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot, of Bunuel's "Age d'Or") is married to Lisette (Paulette Dubost) the chambermaid of Christine. It's interesting that the scene following the opening features these poor guys' women.
Christine (Nora Gregor) is an Austrian married to a rich aristocrat named Robert de la Chastenaye and played by Marcel Dalio (he was Rosenthal, the rich Jew of "Grand Illusion"). She and Lisette talk about their marriage and lovers, without guilt, Lisette has fully embraced her milieu's manners and believes she gives men what they want. Later, Marceau (Julien Carrette), a poacher despised by Schumacher but hired as a servant by Robert, flirts with her, and this little subplot converge with the first triangular love into the unexpectedly tragic ending.
And the central piece of this vaudeville is the marquis Robert, a compromising and mild- mannered man whose personality gets more enigmatic as the plot moves. His answer to the aviator's affair is to invite his mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely) in the castle with the other guests. Octave approves the decision because he needs Christine to get in André's arms. Robert's sense of etiquette and class are often praised (generally as a contrast to his ethnic background) but he's also capable of making surprising moves, like hiring Shumacher's rival, and inviting his mistress and his rival, to give everyone's a chance.
And when all the pieces of the game have been placed, "The Rules of the Games" blossoms as one of the most bizarrely entertaining social commentaries about a class totally disconnected from the world. If not a study, this is a real slap in the face of the social conventions that prevailed in the bourgeois class. Everything has been said about the infamous hunting game where beaters walk across the forest to make the poor rabbits and pheasants hide in the meadow and become the perfect target to the hunters. An exercise in cruelty sublimated by the contrasts between the purity of animals and the mechanical gestures. The same goes for love: it's purity vs. mechanics.
It's fitting that Robert is a collector of mechanical musical toys. Many scenes feature men fooling around with Lisette (Octave, Marceau) as soon as the music from the radio starts the girl plays 'hard to get' and the guy chases her and that's all, it's boring as soon as it becomes sincere. And this all comes down to an extraordinary climax where all these mechanics are played together and the players seem to play hide-and-seek with the camera and the jealous husbands or lovers, while the very director, wearing a bear suit is disoriented as if he was overwhelmed by the genius disorder he created. And the dance macabre goes on playing as the dark omen of the tragic finale to come: the death of Andre, ironically shot by his counterpart Schumacher.
The tragic irony of André is that when he had the one opportunity to flee with Christine, to be fully romantic but he stayed because of good manners. Schumacher mistaking him for Octave and Christine for Lisette, shoots Andre like the rabbits the day earlier, the purity of love has been terminated. And the mechanisms of the bourgeois life cover the crime: Robert forgives his gamekeeper and invites his guest to come to the castle, one man has been sacrificed on the altar of this nonsense, but the honor is safe. And this is where Renoir hits the sensitive chord, after having sublimated the end of era from military gentlemen's perspective in "Grand Illusion", this is the decadent and self-conscious bourgeoisie that contributed to the collapse of the world.
The film was ill-received at the time of its release but it's hard to root for the same society that'd make so much 'bad moves' during the War, it's only after France had come to terms with its own past, and when the final cut, reassembled in 1959 was projected, that they saw Renoir was ahead of his time, and his film became an instant milestone on filmmaking like Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane". The two movies, if anything, have transcended the use of filmmaking for the storytelling. Through his deep focus shots, his revolutionary uses of movements in the backgrounds, so many things happen in this film you're likely to miss them at first, second or third viewing and at the end. The reason is that there's no main protagonist, and each viewing makes you realize they all had their reasons, and as Octave says, that's the awful thing about life.
And that's the great thing about "The Rules Of the Game".
The genius opening of Renoir's "Rules of the Game", made at the dawn of World War 2, less establishes the titular rules than one who's not part of it. André is the ultimate romantic, risking his life for a woman and embodying this magnificent saying from romantic writer Lamartine's: "One person is missing and the whole word seems depopulated". There's no place for romanticism in Renoir's masterpiece that borrows more from "The Marriage of Figaro", written by Marivaux. Marivaux gave his name to the French term: marivaudage, meaning 'little games of love', like a lighthearted way to call gallantries. The film even sets the tone by opening with Marivaux' lines: "If Cupid was given wings, was it not to flitter?"
And boy, will Cupid flitter. I defy anyone to find a movie with as many layers of love and potential romances, you wouldn't even guess who'd end up with whom. To make it simple, there is only André and another schmuck of 'exclusive' heart: the gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot, of Bunuel's "Age d'Or") is married to Lisette (Paulette Dubost) the chambermaid of Christine. It's interesting that the scene following the opening features these poor guys' women.
Christine (Nora Gregor) is an Austrian married to a rich aristocrat named Robert de la Chastenaye and played by Marcel Dalio (he was Rosenthal, the rich Jew of "Grand Illusion"). She and Lisette talk about their marriage and lovers, without guilt, Lisette has fully embraced her milieu's manners and believes she gives men what they want. Later, Marceau (Julien Carrette), a poacher despised by Schumacher but hired as a servant by Robert, flirts with her, and this little subplot converge with the first triangular love into the unexpectedly tragic ending.
And the central piece of this vaudeville is the marquis Robert, a compromising and mild- mannered man whose personality gets more enigmatic as the plot moves. His answer to the aviator's affair is to invite his mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely) in the castle with the other guests. Octave approves the decision because he needs Christine to get in André's arms. Robert's sense of etiquette and class are often praised (generally as a contrast to his ethnic background) but he's also capable of making surprising moves, like hiring Shumacher's rival, and inviting his mistress and his rival, to give everyone's a chance.
And when all the pieces of the game have been placed, "The Rules of the Games" blossoms as one of the most bizarrely entertaining social commentaries about a class totally disconnected from the world. If not a study, this is a real slap in the face of the social conventions that prevailed in the bourgeois class. Everything has been said about the infamous hunting game where beaters walk across the forest to make the poor rabbits and pheasants hide in the meadow and become the perfect target to the hunters. An exercise in cruelty sublimated by the contrasts between the purity of animals and the mechanical gestures. The same goes for love: it's purity vs. mechanics.
It's fitting that Robert is a collector of mechanical musical toys. Many scenes feature men fooling around with Lisette (Octave, Marceau) as soon as the music from the radio starts the girl plays 'hard to get' and the guy chases her and that's all, it's boring as soon as it becomes sincere. And this all comes down to an extraordinary climax where all these mechanics are played together and the players seem to play hide-and-seek with the camera and the jealous husbands or lovers, while the very director, wearing a bear suit is disoriented as if he was overwhelmed by the genius disorder he created. And the dance macabre goes on playing as the dark omen of the tragic finale to come: the death of Andre, ironically shot by his counterpart Schumacher.
The tragic irony of André is that when he had the one opportunity to flee with Christine, to be fully romantic but he stayed because of good manners. Schumacher mistaking him for Octave and Christine for Lisette, shoots Andre like the rabbits the day earlier, the purity of love has been terminated. And the mechanisms of the bourgeois life cover the crime: Robert forgives his gamekeeper and invites his guest to come to the castle, one man has been sacrificed on the altar of this nonsense, but the honor is safe. And this is where Renoir hits the sensitive chord, after having sublimated the end of era from military gentlemen's perspective in "Grand Illusion", this is the decadent and self-conscious bourgeoisie that contributed to the collapse of the world.
The film was ill-received at the time of its release but it's hard to root for the same society that'd make so much 'bad moves' during the War, it's only after France had come to terms with its own past, and when the final cut, reassembled in 1959 was projected, that they saw Renoir was ahead of his time, and his film became an instant milestone on filmmaking like Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane". The two movies, if anything, have transcended the use of filmmaking for the storytelling. Through his deep focus shots, his revolutionary uses of movements in the backgrounds, so many things happen in this film you're likely to miss them at first, second or third viewing and at the end. The reason is that there's no main protagonist, and each viewing makes you realize they all had their reasons, and as Octave says, that's the awful thing about life.
And that's the great thing about "The Rules Of the Game".