René Clair was the first (and to this date only) director inducted in the Académie française (founded by the Cardinal de Richelieu ,their main aim is to produce a definitive dictionary of the French language -a variant of the Sisyphus myth-).
Although he had still sixteen years to live,and although he was spared by the NV attacks , "les fêtes galantes" (which is a misnomer for it's essentially the story of an interminable siege) is his final effort, a "tragico-comedy " as he calls it ;its main problem is his screenplay : it has not the firmness of his other post-war works such as "le silence est d'or" or "la beauté du diable" ;however it's a vast improvement on "porte des lilas " which was an obsolete return to the old realisme poétique .
It's a desultory sprawling comedy,with fine moments and beautiful pictures , but which does not really makes it as a whole. Fortunately ,the cast is attractive : Jean-Pierre Cassel as "Joli-Coeur " who hypocritically prevents his soldiers from raping the peasants ,but who tries his luck (an unfortunately ,the victim is a princess in disguise) ; Philippe Avron ,as the peasant who will never gets his money for his pig ,but is made a soldier on both sides and does not succeed as a deserter ; Jean Richard as the besieger who stuffs himself with fine food when his enemy has only herrings in his besieged castle (and the menu is announced by loudspeaker,an anachronism which Sacha Guitry would not disown ). Plus a fine female cast,with Genevieve Casile,de la comedie française ,and the luminous Marie Dubois as the queen of the stage .
Sacha Guitry ,had he been still alive, would have loved the prologue and the epilogue, based on a painting where there's more to the picture than meets the eye and which spawns the whole movie.
