RENOIR – The Review

Review by Barbara Snitzer

While I highly recommend the new French movie Renoir, I feel obligated to caution that my recommendation might not apply to all Movie Geeks.

The most action-packed scene in this movie involves a paintbrush on canvas- no CGI, not even a montage to push the action along. This movie moves at the pace of Heinz ketchup being poured. If the mere description I’ve offered is making you fidget, watching this movie will feel like driving behind an elderly person going 45 mph with their blinker on. This is not the movie for you to go to impress a date; it won’t be long before a more appropriate French movie will be released.

For the rest of us, Renoir is an ambrosial two hour respite on the French Riviera, specifically Cagnes-sûr-Mer, generously offered by director Gilles Bourdos who is a native of nearby Nice. For those who are familiar with the Impressionist movement in art or the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in particular, it is an opportunity to see the paintings brought to life.

Auguste Renoir is played by the French actor Michel Bouquet, whose acting career has spanned more than half a century. His performance is understated and commanding.

Renoir does not follow the established trajectory of a biopic; the movie begins in 1915, Auguste has only four years to live, and he is crippled by severe rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. It has not been a year since the death of his beloved wife and muse Aline. Only the French could begin a movie full of life amid such dreadful circumstances.

Before Aline passed away, she met a young woman whom she thought would be a perfect model for Auguste. That this young lady, Andrée (the exquisitely beautiful Christa Theret) arrives at Renoir’s doorstep after Aline’s death portends a special significance for Renoir. She is indeed perfect, according to Renoir’s aesthetic. At this point in his art, he is concerned only with luminous skin and how its appearance is affected by the sun and nature.

So significant is she that Renoir dares not seduce her, as had been his usual practice with models, several of whom have become his housemaids and caretakers. Their devotion to him suggests that his peccadillos were not predatory, even if they were not entirely respectable.

The actress Theret’s resemblance to the women in Renoir’s paintings of this period, such as The Bathers (1918-1919, Musée d’Orsay), is uncanny. It is refreshing to be reminded of what women really look like (Christina Hendricks of Mad Men notwithstanding). While there is a degree of nudity in the film, it is restrained, even by French standards. The only moment of vulgarity involves Renoir’s ten-year old son, Claude (called “Coco,” played by Thomas Doret). Hopefully my above-mentioned warning will prevent any vulgarity that may emerge from immature patrons.

The young Claude is the only of Renoir’s three sons who live with him. The eldest two, Pierre and Jean sustained serious injuries in The Great War. The movie does not focus a great deal on either Pierre or Claude who is practically an orphan.

The sad reason for Coco’s neglect is Renoir’s obsessive race against his own mortality. The arrival of his perfect muse, Andrée, only heightens his urgency.

His middle son, Jean, arrives at his father’s estate to recover from a severe leg injury sustained on the battlefield. Jean appears to be his father’s favorite, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suppose Renoir, while not celebrating the reason for his son’s appearance, might be grateful that the injury is sufficiently formidable to prevent his return to war.

At the time of Jean’s arrival, Andrée has become a fixture in Renoir’s household and Renoir has developed a protective affection for her. Jean’s convalescence is comfortable, but isolating as he re-learns how to walk. The exquisite natural environment that surrounds Renoir’s villa exerts its will as Jean and Andrée interlace as a couple. At first Andrée is disdainful towards Jean, judging him as a trust-fund child and derides him for lacking ambition. She shares with Jean her dream to become an actress. Once Jean is on his feet and able to venture into the countryside, he’s inspired to buy film reels from a street vendor. Jean develops a keen interest in film and Andrée is planning their future in cinema.

Their happily-ever-after is derailed when Jean’s full recovery makes way for his sense of duty to re-emerge; he feels obligated to return to fight for his brothers-in-arms and country. Renoir and Andrée are understandably devastated.

But this is not the end of the story, nor the whole of the movie. There aren’t words to convey the transcendent beauty of this part of the world and the exquisite cinematography that captures it. Words can neither explain the creation and process of painting. The paintings in the movie aren’t real Renoirs, but they are real paintings. The hand holding the brush in the movie is that of Guy Rides, an art forger who created the works seen in the film.

Renoir is a movie to be experienced. So I will stop writing about it.

5 of 5 Stars

RENOIR opens in St. Louis May 3rd at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater