Elena et les hommes

Being both a fan of Renoir and Ingrid, imagine my surprise that they happened to collaborate on "Elena and Her Men!" Having yet to be disappointed by Renoir (Rules of the Game being one of the top five 20th century French films), I knew from the description that it wouldn't quite reach those heights but it should still be fun.

Having watched it through, I have to say that the comparisons made to Rules of the Game happen quite enough in Elena that would make the latter seem trite. Even so, and despite the annoying presence of Mel Ferrer (was he dubbed?) and the sub-plots with Eugene-Denise-Lisotte, I have to say that Ingrid Bergman more than makes up for it, with Renoir showing her in all her luminosity in the beautiful dresses (and she certainly out-acts everyone else). The film itself is a little muddled, the previously mentioned sub-plots and other elements like the gypsy woman not quite fitting together (and the ending seems quite cheesy for Renoir, at least for me). All in all watch it if you are a Bergman fan.

There is one really great scene in this movie....the ocean of people at the Bastille Day Celebration and the movement of the crowd through its waves. This scene, and the overall color and details of costumes make this movie worthwhile. And of course there's Ingrid Bergman, whose beauty and poise (even when a little tipsy) is always watcheable. (She is really unique in her era.....have you ever seen or heard of her persona being vamped by any contemporary drag queens....can't be done, I'll wager). The rest of the movie tries to be madcap and michievous, but it just doesn't work. I'm amazed at reading the plot description here....so THAT'S what it was supposed to be about! Sure lost me.

Silly concoction is a minor work for all involved. Ingrid, in her last foreign film before her Rossolini fueled exile from Hollywood ended with her triumphant return in Anastastia, is charming and her dresses are incredibly beautiful. But the settings have a sense of falseness to them, even wealthy people's homes look like someone lives there, these are obvious sets. Even the outdoor scenes have a claustrophobic feeling of being stage-bound. Renoir doesn't seem comfortable with the material or perhaps he didn't believe in it, either way it's missing a light touch that would have turned the film into a charming soufflé instead of the flat farce that it is. Mildly amusing but almost completely forgettable.

After watching two of his silent shorts, 'Elena and her Men (1956)' is my first feature-length film from French director Jean Renoir, and I quite enjoyed it. However, I didn't watch the film for Renoir, but for star Ingrid Bergman, who – at age 41 – still radiated unsurpassed beauty, elegance and charm. Throughout the early 1950s, following her scandalous marriage to Italian Roberto Rossellini, Bergman temporarily fell out of public favour. Her next five films, directed by her husband, were unsuccessful in the United States, and I suspect that Renoir's latest release did little to enhance Bergman's popularity with English-speaking audiences {however, she did regain her former success with an Oscar in the same year's 'Anastasia (1956)'}. She stars as Elena Sokorowska, a Polish princess who sees herself as a guardian angel of sorts, bringing success and recognition to promising men everywhere, before promptly abandoning them. While working her lucky charms to aid the political aspirations of the distinguished General Francois Rollan (Jean Marais), she finds herself falling into a love that she won't be able to walk away from. This vaguely-political film works well as either a satire or a romantic comedy, as long as you don't take it too seriously; it's purely lighthearted romantic fluff.

Filmed in vibrant Technicolor, 'Elena and her Men' looks terrific as well, a flurry of bright colours, characters and costumes. Bergman's Polish princess is dreamy and somewhat self-absorbed, not in an unlikable way, but hardly a woman of high principles and convictions. She is persuaded by a team of bumbling government conspirators to convince General Rollan to stage a coup d'état, knowingly exploiting his love for her in order to satisfy her own delusions as a "guardian angel." Perhaps the film's only legitimately virtuous character is Henri de Chevincourt (Mel Ferrer, then Audrey Hepburn's husband), who ignores everybody else's selfish secondary motives and pursues Elena for love, and love alone. This, Renoir proudly suggests, is what the true French do best. 'Elena and her Men' also attempts, with moderate success, to expose the superficiality of upper-class French liaisons, through the clumsy philandering of Eugène (Jacques Jouanneau), who can't make love to his servant mistress without his fiancè walking in on them. For these sequences, Renoir was obviously trying for the madcap sort of humour that you might find in a Marx Brothers film, but the film itself is so relaxed and laid-back that the energy just isn't there.

Jean Renoir once told he wanted to make this movie to see Ingrid Bergman smile to the camera. This is the strength and the limit of Elena et les hommes. Ingrid Bergman smiles, living buoyantly in this colorful political farce. She and every other character involved goes nowhere. Hence the movie can be seen as a light series of social shafts of wit, something Renoir has always been good at showcasing. He delivers this, his nephew delivers a really nice cinematography but on the whole it looks artificial and vain.

Not a great movie so, but it's always a pleasure to see Bergman smile.