Max Ophuls visual mastery is well in evidence in this uneven three brevity film of short stories by Guy De Mausspant celebrating life's pleasures and the price one sometime pays for it. His camera tracking endlessly, he produces a museum's worth of superb canvases but the mildly engaging story lines, divided in three fail to build or amp up much interest with the first and third stories too brief to develop and the middle lengthy piece a pleasantly benign tale about societal hypocrisy, too sedate for its own good. Ophuls captures the period as well as any impressionist, especially in the highly energetic opening scene but with each tale limping along it is strictly a form over content work speaking the language eloquently, the tales lackluster at best.
Review of Le Plaisir
