Le carrosse d'or

Jean Renoir's colorful English language comedy is not the masterpiece prevailing critical opinion would have you believe ("riotously textural!" raved the Village Voice), but it is a pleasant and entertaining novelty. A spirited Anna Magnani leads a troupe of Italian actors to a Spanish colony in 18th century Peru, where the appreciative Viceroy rewards her talent (and beauty) with the gift of a golden coach, setting off a small political and romantic scandal. It plays for the most part not unlike a literate stage farce, and Renoir emphasizes the theatricality of the story by directing (and shooting) it like theatre, with deliberate, flat compositions and distracting color costumes; the action even begins on a legitimate stage, the walls of which 'disappear' as soon as Renoir's camera dollies into it. The (at the time) newly struck 1992 print, presented by Martin Scorsese, shows obvious evidence of restoration only in the curious epilogue, which brings the story back to its original stage setting, and appears to have been poorly reconstructed on video.

I was afraid that this movie would turn out to be a case of style over substance because of the movie its visual splendor. But I should had known better really, since this movie had Jean Renoir at the helm, a man who really knew how to always tell a story, in the combination with some impressing visuals.

I liked the movie definitely better than expected and I enjoyed it from basically start till finish. It's being a bit of an odd movie, since its a comedy but set in this very serious upper-class world. The movie becomes often an absurd one but not in the way that it's ever ridicules. It's a delightful movie, that has great characters, some nice universal and timeless themes and some great dialog that really all make the movie, fore there is not much else within this movie really. It's definitely not really a movie for 'todays' audience, so to speak.

The movie got shot in color, from which it definitely benefits. It's visuals are still what impresses the most about this movie, no matter how great everything else in it is. It has some great sets and costumes in it, that help to give the movie a certain atmosphere, consistent with the time period it got set in. It doesn't ever feel though as if the movie got set in a small town of Central America, that is a Spanish colony. The movie for all that matter could had just as well been set in France or England for instance but than of course we wouldn't had had a bull fighter as one of the movie its main characters.

It's a movie that as well handles some social themes are all of all times it seems. The corruption of money, power and love all come by here. It keeps the movie going and intriguing to watch throughout, mainly because it's also all being so well written and timed within the movie. The movie got also written by Jean Renoir himself, who often always wrote his own movies, though this movie got based on a play by Prosper Mérimée, who also wrote the novel "Carmen".

A movie that I simply enjoyed watching from start till finish!

9/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

To this reviewer's reckoning, one has to inure the fact that French auteur Jean Renoir's latter track record smacks of resting on his tremendous laurels, THE GOLDEN COACH, the first of his post-Hollywood musical comedies trilogy, will be followed by FRENCH CANCAN (1955) and ELENA AND HER MEN (1956), headlines Anna Magnani as the pillar of an Italian Commedia dell'arte troupe, setting its foot in a 18th century colonial Peru.

Ms. Magnani is Camilla, whose romantic embroilment with 3 different male suitors: Ferdinand (Lamont), the Spanish viceroy, Ramon (Rioli), an indigenous toreador and her longtime Italian beau Felipe (Campbell), will be immediately thrown into a whirlpool of romp and pomp, with the titular golden coach as a token of love from the noble viceroy, which can be put into practical use to save his pending deposition if Camilla feels up to do it.

First things first, amped up by Vivaldi's repertoire, gingered up by Magnani and her troupe shrouded in sheer Technicolor splendor and variegated costumes, not to mention the deadpan aristocratic panoply and comic skits impromptu, THE GOLDEN COACH is so eye-pleasing and ear-soothing that, for one second, one might assume it is a masterpiece in the making, to certain extent, that expectation is partially validated by Renoir's effortless facility to beautifully refine the stodgy with freewheeling ease and the Midas touch, a compassionate, pyrotechnic Magnani, who defies any moral obligation and jaundiced ageism to attest that for a woman in the mellow years, her Camilla is second to none in commanding her own life path and expressing her own feelings, and she has many options at hand: retreating to a simpler, quieter life with Felipe, becoming a celebrity couple among locals with Ramon, aiding with Fedinand in his silk-stocking intrigues, or just resuming her stock role of Columbina with the troupe, it is her call and hers only.

A Cinecittà production bursts into its full-blown lavishness of its visual complexion and texture, THE GOLDEN COACH is a vintage farce hampered by its folly-driven staginess and erstwhile flippancy, unwieldy in its glittering sheen but still a very different kettle of fish from any other vanity projects, for one thing, Renoir is quite au fait with men's sophomoric foibles and a believer in a woman's elemental beneficence.

This tale of an Italian commedia dell'arte troupe just landed in eighteenth-century Peru is an enjoyable time spent with Renoir and his company of players. It is similar in many ways to Renoir's masterpiece, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu) from 1939: the members of a large cast fall in and out of love with one another, with the inevitable jealousies, disappointments, and ecstasies. Renoir's sensibility also remains steadfastly eighteenth-century, as expressed in the quotation of a vaudeville song from the Marriage of Figaro in the titles before The Rules of the Game: 'Sensitive hearts, faithful hearts, who blame fickle Cupid, stop your cruel complaints. Is it a crime to change lovers? If Cupid has wings, is it not to flit about?' Renoir's feel for music is as clear in the Golden Coach as it was in Rules. Excerpts from Vivaldi form the soundtrack, and as familiar as they may sound to us in the twenty-first century, it was surely a more daring choice in 1952, when these pieces were only entering the mainstream. And how many films have a sight-gag with a serpent (the instrument, not the snake)?

Unfortunately, comparing the two films also shows that in revisiting these themes Renoir is not as inspired the second time around. Perhaps the difference is Renoir anxiously watching his world on the precipice in 1939 and gratefully seeing that something survived in 1952. The film is beautifully shot in Technicolor by Claude Renoir (Jean's nephew, who also shot Barbarella and The Spy Who Loved Me!) and the actors are uniformly good, especially Anna Magnani. If the Golden Coach isn't a masterpiece, it's still 109 minutes of pleasure for the eye, the ear, and the spirit from a master of his craft.

It is the film of Anna Magnani. and that is far to be a surprise. because it represents not only charming reconstruction of Commedia dell' Arte but the chance to admire a precise way to build the seduction of a woman discovering herself. it is a Jean Renoir film and his mark is obvious in each scene. it is the film of a great show and bitter commedy. but , if you see it with more profound interest, you have the chance to discover a profound exploration of art, society and significant things. and that transforms it in one of usefull films escaping from the circle of specific genre. because, in essence it is a wise parable about the clash between life and art.