Touches You

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I was looking forward to watching this movie for its reputation as of of the greatest of all time. Another foreign movie, Tokyo Story, is similarly rated, and is very moving and deserving. This film, however, is annoying, with hokey chase scenes that the Keystone Kops would be embarrassed about; glib, has a horrible soundtrack with many grating noises; and has characters that you have to work hard to have any feelings for. In relation to its reputation, I am going to vote it one of the worst movies in the history of cinema. Stay away; you will be restless during the movie to get it over with, and the ending is entirely implausible with a lack of true human emotion, merely French "sophisticated" sorrow.

The movie takes the superficial form of a country house farce, at which wives and husbands, lovers and adulterers, masters and servants, sneak down hallways, pop up in each other's bedrooms and pretend that they are all proper representatives of a well-ordered society.All of this comes to a climax in the famous sequence of the house party, which includes an amateur stage performance put on for the entertainment of guests and neighbors. This sequence can be viewed time and again, to appreciate how gracefully Renoir moves from audience to stage to backstage to rooms and corridors elsewhere in the house, effortlessly advancing half a dozen courses of action, so that at one point during a moment of foreground drama a door in the background opens and we see the latest development in another relationship. It is interesting how little actual sexual passion is expressed in the movie. Schumacher the gamekeeper is eager to exercise his marital duties, but Lisette cannot stand his touch and prefers for him to stay in the country while she stays in town as Christine's maid. The aviator's love for Christine is entirely in his mind. The poacher Marceau would rather chase Lisette than catch her. Robert and his mistress Genevieve savor the act of illicit meetings more than anything they might actually do at them.It is indeed all a game, in which you may have a lover if you respect your spouse and do not make the mistake of taking romance seriously. The destinies of the gamekeeper and the aviator come together because they both labor under the illusion that they are sincere.The finished shot, ending with Robert's face, is a study in complexity, and Renoir says it may be the best shot he ever filmed. It captures the buried theme of the film: That on the brink of war they know what gives them joy but play at denying it, while the world around them is closing down joy, play and denial.

I am somewhat puzzled after having watched this acclaimed as a classical film. If this is supposed to be a comedy, it lacks any fun whatsoever, if it pretends to be a drama, it is hilarious, if it tries to be something in between, it just fully fails.A set of personages with intermingled love and friendship relationships that come from nowhere, develop without any sense in a series of ridiculous scenes, and end in... nothing at all. What's the point??. Not a single personage raises any sympathy or concern for him/her, no personage is developed so that you can understand his/her motivations and the reason why is behaving in such a senseless way (everybody does in the film).Is the film maybe a criticism against aristocracy/bourgeoisie?... if so I can't imagine a more clumsy way to do it!... Well, let's leave it at that. Mi first attempt with Jean Renoir, and for sure the last one!

When one looks at this film, one immediately appreciates how much cinematographic technique had improved since the birth of the talkies some ten-twelve years previously. Renoir showcases a dazzling array of techniques that transforms this potentially "stagey" comedy of manners, with its limited number of characters and locations, into true cinema. Deep focus shots and panning reveals are all used to good effect here, giving the film an extraordinary dynamism.Social expectations are constantly subverted - the pilot who has completed the Atlantic crossing is not the macho hero one expects but a forlorn, jilted lover. Indeed, at the end he does not die an heroic death or win the girl but is killed due to a farcical case of mistaken identity. Likewise, the Jewish character is no outsider, but accepted as being at the heart of society.This subversion leads to the heart of the story which exposes the upper classes/nobility as a deeply corrupt and decadent group of individuals, and not the exemplary citizens that the lower classes need as role models. In fact, the opposite is true. The bad example being set by the upper classes is leading workers such as the gamekeeper and poacher astray as they seek to imitate their behaviour. Hence the poison is spreading through society from the top down.There is some effective use of motifs throughout. The scene of wanton slaughter during the hunt shows both the wastefulness and emptiness of the lives of the upper class, who amuse themselves only through love affairs and destructive behaviour. The scene also foreshadows the death of the aviator.Likewise, the notion of the cupid having wings meaning he is meant to fly also points to the aviator as being central to this story.Also, the scenes of theatre and plays-within-plays are, of course, a technique that have been used to great effect ever since Hamlet. Here, they once more reinforce the notion that the nobility are constantly wearing masks and playing at roles. They are so disassociated from "real life" that they cannot take anything seriously or possibly comprehended the seriousness of the consequences of their actions, even when confronted with them. Those observations are left to us, the audience, who sits outside the action.The ending is ambiguous: are the upper classes, with their euphemism and deceit really a dying race or is this one more lie? Perhaps the looming war seemed to foreshadow the destruction of their world but, if anything, western society is now as deceitful and corrupt as ever, if not with respect to the virtually-extinct old European nobility, then certainly in terms of the professional classes of politicians, academics and lawyers.Ultimately, this is Renoir at his most mature but it is not an easily-accessible film and one should be prepared to undertake repeated viewings. As with all of the director's work, pacing and rhythm are problematic and there are long lulls between bursts of drama.