Customer Reviews

La Marseillaise [VHS]

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Coming as it does between the much better-known and acclaimed "La Grande illusion" and "La Bête humaine", it's not surprising that this epic story of the French Revolution told mostly from the point of view of several peasant and laboring-class men who find themselves (mostly uneasily) caught up in the events of the early part of the revolt would get glossed over by many film historians. And it's not quite on the level of those masterpieces nor of "La Règle du jeu" from the following year or for that matter most of Renoir's 40s and 50s output, but it's also hardly worthy of dismissal.

The film begins in the countryside and the Mediterranean port city of Marseilles, as a middle-aged man is about to be tried (and presumably executed) for the killing of a pigeon on his lord's land. He instead escapes into the country, into the mountains, where he meets up with with other like-minded impoverished proto-rebels. Slowly over the course of the first half-hour the struggle takes on political tones rather than just the personal gripe of one man, and it is the genius of the film to keep slowly building to the inevitable climax of "The Nation" versus "The King" while never forgetting to regard participants also as individuals.

By the middle of the film the royal family and nobles have begun to understand the dangers they face, or at least some have -- the king still ignores the growing strife -- and they begin to play a major role in the film. Interestingly, the prime revolutionaries themselves though mentioned never take the stage; the focus is always on the lowest and the highest members of society, with the intellectuals who fomented the events offstage. Renoir is, it seems, trying to tell us that events were inevitable, and the prime movers really aren't all that significant if we look at the lives of those who stood most to gain, or lose.

The final battle sequences are impressively staged, the film as a whole is strikingly well-acted and pretty seamless for all its shifting of focus between the oblivious king and his progressively angrier subjects. Particular acting honors would go to Edmond Ardisson as Bomier, whose growing beginnings of an understanding that revolution is not merely about him, but about the whole world around him are very moving. Pierre Renoir as Louis XVI manages to be foolish, brutal, and sympathetic by turns.

A recreation of the actual historic events of the French Revolution, from the elegance of the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, to the fall of the Bastille in 1789, to the defeat of the mighty Prussian Infantry by a unified nation. The film follows the adventures of two young patriots.