Even if ultimately this is not one of Renoir's best efforts, assured direction and a biting script show some of the old magic.
Elena and Her Men (1956)
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Reviews Counted:12
Fresh:9
Rotten:3
Average Rating:6.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Set in Paris in the 1880s, Renoir's light comedy mixes romance with politics in a film that stars Ingrid Bergman as Elena, an impoverished Polish princess. After the beautiful woman has walked out... Set in Paris in the 1880s, Renoir's light comedy mixes romance with politics in a film that stars Ingrid Bergman as Elena, an impoverished Polish princess. After the beautiful woman has walked out on her current lover, she watches a huge Bastille Day crowd cheering the heroic General Rollan (Jean Marais). Also cheering the general, while admiring Elena, is Henri de Chevincourt (Mel Ferrer), another aristocrat of slender means. Resolved to abandon romance and marry for money, Elena accepts an invitation from the wealthy, if unattractive Michaud (Pierre Bertin) to a hunting party at his country house. There she meets Rollan, now Minister of War, and the two promptly fall in love. Rollan has been responding aggressively to a series of menacing maneuvers by the German government, a posture that is encouraged by the right-wing extremists who are hoping for a conflict that should lead the country to abandon its republican form of government. When Rollan realizes he's become a tool of this faction, he becomes disenchanted with politics. He also realizes that Elena loves the role he plays and not himself. When he leaves the country surreptitiously, will she join him? [More]
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Mel Ferrer, Jean Marais, Juliette Greco
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Mel Ferrer, Jean Marais, Juliette Greco
Director: Jean Renoir
Director: Jean Renoir
Reviews for Elena and Her Men
Fantasy, yes, but hardly escapist in the astonishing pertinence with which it reduces the hawkish military and political ambitions of the day to derisory farce while demonstrating the infallibility with which love goes on making the world go round.
The fact that Jean Renoir was its director is the ultimate oddity. How this fiasco could have happened is difficult to explain.
Bergman's signature elegance remains the only enduring element of Renoir's light-hearted confection.
This is a fantastic film. It is filled with patented Renoirisms, from the utter sincerity of the emotions to the exceptional impressionistic composition.
the resemblance it bears to Renoir’s great Rules of the Game is more than passing, and I think this detracts
...there's something to be said for Renoir's universe in which governments can turn on the question of who gets to bed Ingrid Bergman.
The film is ravishing to look at (with Ingrid Bergman radiant at its center), and its mid-80s 35-millimeter restoration is a sumptuous treat indeed.
What's interesting is the way that Renoir preserves a strong erotic and romantic thread (the love between Bergman and Ferrer) all the way through the movie's farcical elements.
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