Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932)

Jean Renoir is a filmmaker who is very well renowned for his humanism, for his acceptance of all sorts of people and all sorts of cultures and schools of thoughts. Having said that, 'Boudu Saved from Drowning' is a very sharp attempt at social commentary without much restraint. He explores the distinctions between the lower classes and the bourgeois class by making them clash. Although he doesn't make bad/evil people out of either of these two sections of people, he doesn't shy away from showcasing the underlying hypocrisy that was a part of the bourgeois class in France at the time and he also underlines the wild and unsophisticated disrespect and disregard for others that can be shown by people belonging to the lower classes.

Renoir wrote the screenplay for the film based on a play René Fauchois. The film starts with Edouard, the bourgeois bookshop owner as Priapus pursuing Anne-Marie who is supposed to be Chloe. This fantasy sequence takes place on a lateral stage with no doors separating the two. Suddenly the shot dissolves and we are transported to the interior of Edouard's bookshop/apartment, but he is still calling Anne-Marie his little nymph and he is referring to himself as Priapus. This means that in his mind's imaginations, Edouard wants his relationship with Anne-Marie to be like the one shown in the opening shot. But then he asks Anne-Marie to ready the soup and we see them separate and carry on their respective duties. Renoir carefully draws out how separated they are in the apartment due to their social roles. One of the many important reasons why the design of the apartment is important is because Renoir shoots it in a way to underline the way people are separated. This apartment is a metaphor for bourgeois society. The whole apartment is littered with numerous doors that separate the people living inside. Renoir uses deep focus filming to not only allow the actors to live the environment but also to underline the geometry of the apartment. There is a marvellous scene in which the camera accompanies Anne- Marie from the dining room through a series doors and windows with one tracking shot until she arrives at the kitchen at then comes forward to the window which offers the frame within a frame visual appeal. This fantastic shot allows Renoir to brilliantly show the barriers of this apartment. These rooms and corridors are enclosed and isolated and suffocating and in a thematic way restrictive. This is a subtle, wordless, visual, but still a scathing attack on the bourgeois culture.

The suffocating and enclosed nature of Edouard Lestingois' apartment is contrasted by the outdoor and open locations where we first find Boudu. The pillars in the apartment are replaced by the vertical rows of trees. Renoir uses the water body as the place of meeting and separation between the two classes. But once Boudu enters the apartment of Lestingois and hence the bourgeois culture, the hypocrisies that are inherent to this culture get gradually revealed.

The film is pretty impressive in my opinion with one reservation. There is a scene where one character forces himself on another and the way that scene gets executed is a bit objectionable especially today. That particular scene is immensely dated and doesn't work at this day and age. The lighthearted way in which this scene gets brushed aside is a bit offensive.

Apart from a singular reservation, I think 'Boudu Saved from Drowning' is a solid film in the filmography of the French master Jean Renoir who went on to make even better and more critically acclaimed films. This film had a huge influence on the French New Wave directors in the aspect of shooting on actual locations. This particular film can also be seen as a prototype for subsequent films dealing with similar plots about 'uncivilised' individuals being introduced to 'civilised' society like Truffaut's 'The Wild Child' or Herzog's 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser'. Recommended.