Director: Jean Renoir
A good, classic French movie that didn't really grab me until the third act.
La Chienne - English translation, "The Bitch," - takes place in 1930s Paris and mostly follows Maurice LeGrand, a rather quiet, reserved, and sensitive sad sack who works as a clerk for a hosiery company. He is married to a WWI widow, a battle ax of a woman who despises him, and he finds solace in doing humble paintings when he can. Coming home from a dinner with work colleagues one night, he runs across Lucienne and Andre in a fight. Lucienne, or "Lulu," is a rather dim-witted young woman who is constantly extorted and abused by the fast-talking pimp Andre, or "Dede." Maurice rescues Lulu in a rather timid way, and he strikes up a romance with her. Dede, ever the opportunist, convinces the hopelessly dependent Lulu to help him extort Maurice for everything he has.
The movie is not an easy one to watch, frankly. As my summary probably suggests, it features a trio of none-too-admirable characters at its center. And honestly, it is disheartening to watch the spineless Maurice get bilked by the shallow and dumb Lulu, who in turn is abused and exploited by the morally bankrupt Dede. There are very few redeemable characteristics to be found in the movie, even with supporting characters like Maurice's wife, who is a vicious person with nothing but unfounded contempt for her second husband.
So why do I say it's a good movie? Well, it all came down to the third act for me. It was at this point that the plot took an unforeseen turn that, while rather shocking, still felt organic rather than contrived. Not only that, but it turns on their heads several notions about the characters and the viewers' judgments of them. It's not that you completely rethink all of them, but you certainly have to think hard about whether there is any justice in the ways that their three lives turn out by movie's end. It put me in mind of the classic American noir novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. That novel I found to be rather dull until the final chapters, in which things become wondrously existential and find a depth that one couldn't see coming for most of the story. La Chienne produces a similar effect, and this film came out several years before James M. Cain's hallmark novel.
There is also, of course, the pure cinema of the movie. I've now seen a few of Jean Renoir's films, and the man always showed a keen eye for the visual (not surprising, considering that his father was world-renowned painter Auguste Renoir). While La Chienne doesn't employ any especially dazzling technique, such as we see in Renoir's Beauty and the Beast or his Orphic Trilogy, there are more than a few brilliant-if-subtle frame compositions and angles which enhance the mood and narrative. I often find such things easier to discern in black and white films, so this was a treat for me.
It took the final thirty minutes for me to see it, but it's clear why this one is considered a classic.
La Chienne - English translation, "The Bitch," - takes place in 1930s Paris and mostly follows Maurice LeGrand, a rather quiet, reserved, and sensitive sad sack who works as a clerk for a hosiery company. He is married to a WWI widow, a battle ax of a woman who despises him, and he finds solace in doing humble paintings when he can. Coming home from a dinner with work colleagues one night, he runs across Lucienne and Andre in a fight. Lucienne, or "Lulu," is a rather dim-witted young woman who is constantly extorted and abused by the fast-talking pimp Andre, or "Dede." Maurice rescues Lulu in a rather timid way, and he strikes up a romance with her. Dede, ever the opportunist, convinces the hopelessly dependent Lulu to help him extort Maurice for everything he has.
The movie is not an easy one to watch, frankly. As my summary probably suggests, it features a trio of none-too-admirable characters at its center. And honestly, it is disheartening to watch the spineless Maurice get bilked by the shallow and dumb Lulu, who in turn is abused and exploited by the morally bankrupt Dede. There are very few redeemable characteristics to be found in the movie, even with supporting characters like Maurice's wife, who is a vicious person with nothing but unfounded contempt for her second husband.
So why do I say it's a good movie? Well, it all came down to the third act for me. It was at this point that the plot took an unforeseen turn that, while rather shocking, still felt organic rather than contrived. Not only that, but it turns on their heads several notions about the characters and the viewers' judgments of them. It's not that you completely rethink all of them, but you certainly have to think hard about whether there is any justice in the ways that their three lives turn out by movie's end. It put me in mind of the classic American noir novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. That novel I found to be rather dull until the final chapters, in which things become wondrously existential and find a depth that one couldn't see coming for most of the story. La Chienne produces a similar effect, and this film came out several years before James M. Cain's hallmark novel.
There is also, of course, the pure cinema of the movie. I've now seen a few of Jean Renoir's films, and the man always showed a keen eye for the visual (not surprising, considering that his father was world-renowned painter Auguste Renoir). While La Chienne doesn't employ any especially dazzling technique, such as we see in Renoir's Beauty and the Beast or his Orphic Trilogy, there are more than a few brilliant-if-subtle frame compositions and angles which enhance the mood and narrative. I often find such things easier to discern in black and white films, so this was a treat for me.
It took the final thirty minutes for me to see it, but it's clear why this one is considered a classic.
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