Elena et les hommes

Jean Renoir will always be judged by his timeless pre-war French classics which means that his subsequent films invariably fall short. This is the third of his 'trilogy' from the 1950's. It is not quite as bad as 'La Carosse d'Or' but not nearly as good as 'French Cancan'.

Ravishingly shot by Claude Renoir, it begins promisingly with the blossoming romance between luminous Ingrid Bergman and elegant Mel Ferrer but the director has alas plumped for a strange concoction of romantic melodrama and slapstick farce and ultimately the film works as neither. Love conquers all at the end which is a relief because it means the film is finally over.

Apparently Rossellini advised his wife to work with Renoir and Bergman. Having made this dud with the former she had to wait twenty years to work with the latter which produced the masterpiece 'Autumn Sonata'.

This is my second viewing and I didn't really like it on my first. Actually it is good if you can skip the scenes that took place at Elena's fiance chateau. The main criticsms for this movie is its convoluting and muddling plot. There were so many unnecessary characters in the background chasing up and down running and making stupid faces and movements. At same time the generals were upstairs laying out plots of overthrowing the government that it gets so convoluted and viewers couldn't follow through and they lost ineterest. On the flip side, the colour was superb. I like the technicolor they used in films during this period. It was so rich, striking, and bold. Ingrid Bergman was so radiant and gorgeous filmed in color. She was a dramatic actress not a comedienne so it was interesting to see her pulling it off in the middle of those chasing, yelling, and screaming scenes. The film suffers anytime she was not on screen. I think most of viewers agree. They wanted or can I say it begged for her to be back on screen. Renoir wanted to film Ingrid Bergman smiles. And my God what a smile it was. The ending was masterpiece, it was magic. You have to experience it and feel it to appreciate it. When it comes to kissing you can count on French! Very recommended.

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.

A Jean Renoir vaudeville stars Ingrid Bergman as a Polish princess-cum-widow Elena Sokorowska in pre WWI Paris, merrily philandering with her suitors, until they are pinned down between two, the radical party general François Rollan (Marais) who is a candidate for the prime minister of the country and a romantic count Henri de Chevincourt (Ferrer).

My second Renoir's film after THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939, 8/10), ELENA AND HER MEN is on a splendid parade of polychromatism with exquisite costumes and interior decoration, whereas the movie is indulged in its own flamboyance and fecklessness, not even Juliette Gréco's superb rendition could ease the despondent frown.

Maybe it was Renoir's intention to make a film pandering for French audience and foreign Gallo- savants at its time, but the story is utterly uninvolving, all the rapid talking side characters pop up and romp around inordinately, which causes great trouble to comprehend what is going on on the screen, soon or later, all of them will inexplicably lapses into ridiculous buffoons, and more unsatisfying is that there is never enough room for viewers to savor the farce.

Bergman has a gregarious presence in this light-hearted rom-com, a skip-deep socialite can equally excel in conquering any man she wants and appeasing any man she deserts, with her charm daisy. Two besotted gentlemen, either the aristocratic and uptight Marias or the more characterless Ferrer, fail to make strong impact other than a convenient pawn to be blindly swept off his feet by Elena ever since the first glance.

Supporting roles galore, Jean Richard is Rollan's guard Hector, fights for the love of Lolotte (Noël), Elena's young maid, with Eugéne (Jouanneau), Elena's soon-to-be son-in-law, and truly, Elena is going to remarry with shoe businessman Mr. Martin-Michaud (Bertin), and their will be a double wedding with Eugéne marries his fiancée Denise (Nadal), things are all mismanaged under a political turbulence which one might find it difficult to decipher with its fast pace. Not to mention Rollan's quartet political corp, things could not be more messier.

Renoir certainly is still good at his trick with various characters bungle together within a carefully measured frame, but it doesn't change much for the haphazard love-triangle, in the end, one can only wish it could end as soon as possible, since our rationality determines that it doesn't worth all the effort.

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.