Kritiken (1)
The suffering of Catherine Hessling, part II. This time, Renoir has his wife almost raped, physically assaulted several times and robbed before resting in the arms of a noble prince (gladly cantering on a white horse). The realistic presentation of these events aggressively contrasts with the atmosphere of a light summer comedy with a wealth of gags, whose victims are – unsurprisingly in light of the director’s later work – well-to-do gentlemen. There is a one-off visit to an entirely different cinematic world in the form of a long dream sequence that stacks up surrealistic scenes using various techniques of the first avantgarde (slow motion, superimposition, optical deformation of the image). The filming in real conditions and the rejection of tinting thus seem rather like a financial necessity than evidence of filmmaking maturity. There is no sign of maturity in the acting of Hessling, who still uses theatrical gestures to express emotions (in contrast to the performances of the other actors). Like his more experienced colleagues, Renoir simply wanted to find out everything that could be done with the medium, thanks to which the film contains several impressive scenes, but it doesn’t hold together as a whole. 70%
()