Toni
1935 Drama / Romance
Credits
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Summary
Toni, a young Italian arrives in France and finds work as a quarry labourer. He
finds lodgings with a young woman, Marie, who falls in love with him. Toni, however,
loves another woman, Josepha, but he rejects her when she is raped by Albert, his foreman.
To avoid a scandal, Toni marries Marie, and Albert marries Josepha. A short time
later, Josepha realises she is in a loveless marriage and decides to elope with her secret
lover, Gaby, having first stolen some money from her husband. Realising her infidelity,
Albert beats his wife and, in the heat of the moment, she kills him. Toni appears
and offers to hid the body. However, he is observed by a country policeman, who
draws the obvious conclusion. To protect Josepha, Toni confesses to the murder,
before going on the run...
Review
Jean Renoir’s bold experiment with neo-realism is only partially successful (marred
mainly by wooden acting), but it provides an interesting diversion from the artificial
studio-based cinema of the time.
Filmed largely on location, without background music, and using locals for extras, Toni makes quite a contrast to other films of its period, having more the feel of a documentary than a traditional piece of cinema. The fact that the story was based on a real-life case also adds more than a touch of verisimilitude. The film had a marked influence on the Italian director Luchino Visconti, who worked on this film as one of Renoir’s assistants. Although it is not a style which Renoir himself mastered, neo-realism would assume greater importance in the 1940s, under the stewardship of Visconti and his contemporaries. © James Travers 2002 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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