Boudu Saved from Drowning DVD

The film is from another era, like the Paris that we see in the background. It is leisurely, unhurried. There is no ‘meaning’, and the film has no polemical points to... Read on

The film is from another era, like the Paris that we see in the background. It is leisurely, unhurried. There is no ‘meaning’, and the film has no polemical points to make. The story seems improvised, and its pace is casual and unforced.

Renoir invites us into the story with his tramp. The story is as simple as its characters. Boudu the tramp is saved from suicide by Monsieur Lestingois, a bookseller who takes him in to his home and tries to re-create him in his own solid-bourgeois image. Bearded and long-haired, this precursor of all hippies just wants to be left alone. He shows what the middle classes give up for respectability, spilling wine on the table, leaving water running in the sink, wiping his shoes on the bedspread. Pauline Kael says there is some disorderly malice in him – a refusal to be clean and responsible - that is positively satisfying.

Where the bookseller is inhibited, even unmanned, Boudu seduces both his wife and mistress simply by being himself. Michel Simon’s loose walk, his eyes that don’t communicate, his insouciance and smug self-satisfaction defy those bent on reforming him –instead, he changes them, and how he does so makes the story.

It oozes life and a leisurely unforced humour, and the naturalistic characters, situation and relationships turn out to be totally compelling. The whole thing is done with Renoir’s insouciant genius –as though he is filming a newsreel unfolding before our eyes. The actors are not arranged but found by the camera on the street, in the shop, on the banks of the Seine. One minute they are there; the next they disappear, to reappear casually again later on. Renoir allows his film – and us -to breathe easily and naturally, and the simple act of breathing has rarely proved more enjoyable.

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