The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir's last movie as writer-director was originally a TV presentation, so the copy I looked at showed the usual marks of a poor tape copy. It is composed of three stories, with an intermission in which Jeanne Moreau, dressed in a fin-de-siecle dress, sings "Quand l'Amour Meurt" in a blank-faced manner. The first story has Nino Formicola and Milly as two elderly bums, receive a windfall from drunken rich people; the second has Marguerite Cassan, obsessed with waxing her floor, kill two husbands; and the third, the longest, has a triangle of elderly Fernand Sardou, his young wife Françoise Arnoul, and veterinarian Jean Carmet, in a love triangle -- they all love each other.

Renoir, throughout his career, had a theme of disdainful satire for the upper classes and public opinion running through many of his movies. This final work of his continues the theme. If it is not among his great works, it still shows the same attitudes, a pleasant and mildly, disdainful sense that it is better to be happy than depend on the opinions of others.

Perhaps it is therefore ridiculous to offer an opinion of this last offering, or indeed any other. But I had a good time watching this sunset work.