Toni

After a long search, I found "Toni" on DVD from Shanghai, China. The price was reasonable and so I bought. Unfortunately, the subtitling was also done in Shanghai. This leads to such subtitles as "An unfortunate elephant violates Se perfume w." About three-quarters of the way through, the picture begins to come apart electronically, and becomes practically incomprehensible. Given all the problems with this disc, I am still glad I had the chance to once more see Renoir's simple, beautiful masterpiece. The subtle distinctions in lighting (especially outdoors), the small but telling camera moves, the reserved yet powerful performances all show the hand of a master at work. Visconti may have been inspired from working on this film, but his films were always pedal-to-the-metal, all-out mellers. Renoir takes a story that's as old as the hills and gives it all of his love, respect and considerable talent.

A booming Provence draws workers from Spain and Italy, among them Charles Blavette. He quickly acquires a job at a quarry and a wife, Jenny Hélia, but nurses a passion for the sluttish Celia Montalván, When her uncle dies and Blavette is adamant that he will carry out his wishes that Blavette do his duty as Celia's daughter's godfather, his life goes to pieces. He thinks he can put it together again with a hare-brained scheme that involves Celia, the baby and him running away to South America, but there are complications in her household he doesn't imagine.

Jean Renoir's frequently overlooked movie is competently done, but ignored because, although it clearly has film noir elements in it, including the usual femme fatale, everyone is. to put it unkindly, so stupidly selfish as to be unworthy of much dramatic consideration. The situations go beyond pathos into bathos, and if it were not for the grace notes that Renoir inserts into the production, like the workers' songs, and the actors' ability to inhabitant these foolish characters, it would not be worth the time to look at the movie.

It's a well-meaning effort, based on some ethnographic notes that an old school friend of Renoir's, Jacques Levert took; Marcel Pagnol is listed as executive producer, so clearly someone thought that this was something on the order of the Fanny trilogy in showing the lower classes as they really were. Unfortunately, it shows them as dopes and little more.

"Toni" did not continue the ferocious works of the early thirties which made Renoir the first director of the era.Gone were the attacks against the bourgeoisie which we found in "La Chienne" "Boudu Sauvé des Eaux" and even in the adaptations of novels from the nineteenth century such as "Madame Bovary" and "Nana".Toni is a special case in Renoir's work.It was probably his most accessible film of the era.It was at once his simplest and yet most complex effort .

Produced by Pagnol,in Pagnol's country,La Provence,with some of Pagnol's actors(Andrex was featured in "Angèle" whereas Charles Blavette was part of the cast of "La Femme du Boulanger"),it might look like a Pagnolesque movie but do not rely on appearances.Both the prologue and the epilogue could not be in a Pagnol movie in which the modern world (a bridge,an oil refinery)is almost absent.Unlike Pagnol,there's no humor or bonhomie in "Toni".The characters have not that colorful side which is Raimu's and Fernandel's trademarks.

It has been said a lot of times that "Toni" predated the Italian Neorealism by fifteen years .It's true for the prologue and the epilogue which frame the movie : the Italian workers coming to France to find a job in the railway station then on their way to the country of milk and honey,so to speak ,make me think of De Santis's "Risco Amaro" and of course De Sica's "Ladri di biciclette".But,as Jacques Lourcelles wrote,Italian Neorealism's main concern was to depict the immediate present,and Renoir 's movie's core is a story close to what the French called "chansons réalistes ",a field where Frehel and Edith Piaf won fame.The fact that it's based on a true story does not matter much:it could be a short news item.

"Toni" is ,no more ,no less,the story of characters constantly tearing each other apart.The hero,in love with Josepha,marries Marie and both of them aren't happy.As for Josepha she marries a brute and she lives with her husband and her cousin,a despicable coward.All that Toni and Josepha try to do to escape from an ominous fate backfires against them:the ending is telling since the two lovers ,trying to save each other,precipitate their ruin.

Admirable sequences:Toni and Josepha ,on the path,where she claims a bee is in her blouse;Marie,in her boat on the lake,intending to commit suicide ,a scene superbly filmed by Claude Renoir;Toni,desperately running on the bridge.

Renoir used to see La Provence as a tower of Babel (he told us so at the beginning of his film) ,the French (or Latin more like) melting pot.Spanish ,Italian guys joined their French brothers.And it's important to notice it,those aliens are not treated as inferiors ,or at least Renoir shows them so.

Minor quibble:Charles Blavette is not well cast as Toni;he 's got the famous Provençal accent whereas he is supposed to be an Italian!

There is more than a touch of the Pagnols here, both geographically and literally, indeed the print I saw even credited Pagnol as 1) a producer or (and more probably) 2, the use of his studio space. For reasons best known to himself Renoir chose to set a triangular love story in Pagnol turf, le midi and though the result is creditable it is difficult if not impossible to view a movie like this in the 21st century, with our knowledge that by the time it was shot Pagnol had seen his own trilogy on similar themes produced on both stage and screen. Nevertheless and despite ageing prints this remains well worth seeing and obligatory for the Renoir scholar. 6/10

Renoir Is A Grizzly Bear, And Boss Of His Cinema.

The Foremost Jean, of all jeans, the toni, the boss, of a rather crowded table. Where this grizzly bear of a director, sets the story for later European Cinema. In Toni, one of the most enjoyable of Renoir's repertoire. He tells a story of a gang of characters he introduces to the public and audience. From my perspective, Renoir, has a very interesting and personalization to crafting his characters, that resonate through out most of his works.

Renoir is, I think, the most special Director in early Cinema, and I believe his works will continue to inspire young artists and cinemaphiles, movie makers, and a new direction. This film, defined European Cinema, and that is why it's a very warm welcome to anyone's film collection. Nothing short of a masterpiece.

Enjoy.