The Rules of the Game

Renoir made a tight little romantic, or rather anti-romantic, comedy. And an angst-ridden, oversensitive, pre-WW2 French Bourgeosie, afraid of its own shadow, saw their worst character flaws fully illuminated exaggerated and satirized.

The 'one of the greatest films ever made' tag is a lot for a film to carry. There seems to be two sets of these 'greatest films ever made' - the audience's films (the likes of The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Star Wars), and the critics' films (Ozu's Tokyo Story, Murnau's Sunrise, Hitchcock's Vertigo).

It is a movie of superlatives: masterpiece, classic, cult, reference, influential, lesson of cinema, best French film ever, "the movie of movies" (Truffaut). When it came out in 1939, it was a relative failure, albeit not as complete as Renoir himself believed.

I am somewhat puzzled after having watched this acclaimed as a classical film. If this is supposed to be a comedy, it lacks any fun whatsoever, if it pretends to be a drama, it is hilarious, if it tries to be something in between, it just fully fails.

The Rules of the Game, directed by Jean Renoir in 1939, deeply explores French culture at the time before World War II the repeated theme of contrasting the rich and the poor is heavily stressed. The rich seem to be selfish, only concerned with their own lives and playing "the game" to advance themselves in their personal affairs.

I have a hard time understanding this movie. I feel that a lot of it comes from the time at which the movie was released and the special atmosphere it spoke to.

The Rules Of The Game (1939) : Brief Review -The good thing is it's a 'Mad Comedy' and the bad thing is it's a 'MAD Film'. No wonder why people scorned it.

Renoir was a master of satire. RULES OF THE GAME is a film that ridicules perhaps one social class with superb attention.