La Règle du jeu (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir

Film Review

One of the undisputed all time classics of French cinema, La Règle du Jeu is also widely regarded as Jean Renoir's best film, a sublime masterpiece of filmmaking technique and satirical verve.  Alternating between high drama and music hall farce, it has simultaneously the sophistication of a great work of art and also the sense of anarchistic fun of a student comic play. Filmed with the eye of a cinematographic genius, with excellent acting throughout, La Règle du Jeu is a classic in the truest sense of the word. The film was intended as a social satire on the class system in France of the 1930s, making fun of both the aristocracy and the working classes, but its incisive wit and provocative study of human nature gives it a timeless quality which makes it relevant to any generation of cinema going audience.

One of the most extraordinary characteristics of the film is how it manages to avoid fitting into the conventional genres of cinema.  It is neither a farce, drama, romance, tragedy or satire, but it is somehow a combination of all of these at the same time.  Some parts of the film are outrageously funny, for example the famous party scene, which quickly degenerates into farce before reaching its tense and dramatic climax.

For the most part, the film resembles a tongue-in-cheek satire on bourgeois life, and Renoir's intense distaste with the High Bourgeoisie is apparent throughout.  By portraying the ruling classes as insensitive automata blindly adhering to an unwritten code of honour (la régle du jeu) and incapable of showing genuine emotion, Renoir makes his most damning comment on upper class standards and behaviours.  The "he has class" line at the end of the film when one house guest comments on his host's sang froid is said in praise but Renoir clearly meant something very different.

Renoir is no more enamoured of the working classes, whom he presents as subservient menials whose greatest pleasure is to clean the boots of their overlords.  Compared with the passionless romantic tangles of their lords and masters, affairs of the heart drive the domestics to throw themselves at each other in a comic fight to the death.  Only the sage social parasite Octave (played by Renoir himself) is capable of feeling genuine love, but he, tragically, is the one person who least equipped to win it.

The style in which the film is shot is no less unsettling than its content.  In contrast to the conventions of the day, Renoir uses techniques which gives his film an almost neo-realist feel - for example, his preference for wide-angled long shots.   As a result, the film has a strange naturalistic quality which is almost nearer to a documentary than a theatrical work.  The place where this is most apparent is the hunt scene, which culminates in a rapid succession of shocking images of wanton brutality as rabbits and pheasants are slaughtered in front of the camera.  The scene, with its raw candour, not only further alienates the spectator from the gentry but prepares us for the film's shocking ending.  In Renoir's eyes, not only do the aristocracy have no passion in affairs of the heart, they also seem to have scant respect for life - to them, it is all a game.  This explains why, when the gamekeeper goes on a killer rampage during the party, the house guests assume it is just part of the entertainment which has been lain on for them.

Although La Régle du jeu is now safely acknowledged as one of the greatest films in cinema history, it has certainly had a chequered history.  The film was, at the time it was made, one of Renoir's most ambitious films, costing around five million Francs, but it was a commercial disaster.  At its first showing in Paris in July 1939, the film was reviled by the audience and Renoir was forced to make drastic cuts to the film, reducing it to 80 minutes.  Released in its new form, the film fared no better - it was condemned by critics and public alike for its scandalous and depressing tone.  Under the occupation during World war II, the film was banned, and soon disappeared into obscurity.  The film resurfaced in the late 1950s, having been fully restored (under Renoir's supervision), and following its showing at the Venice film festival in 1959 it was instantly established as one of the genuine masterpieces of world cinema.

Film Synopsis

The aviator André Jurieux returns to France after a record-breaking flight, but is heart-broken when the woman he loves, Christine de la Chesnaye, is not there to meet him.  His friend, Octave, contrives to have André invited to the Chesnayes' country mansion for a weekend of hunting and partying.  Christine's husband, Robert, has also been having a secret affair, and he has invited his mistress, Geneviève, for the weekend, but only with the intention of ending the affair.  Octave, who has himself loved Christine since she was a girl, warns André that he cannot expect to win Christine, for that would breach the 'rules of the game'.  Whilst the party is in full swing, the Chesnayes' gamekeeper, Schumacher, discovers that his wife, Christine's maid, has been flirting with another servant, Marceau, and is determined to kill him...