Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p28

10/07/2014 06:11 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p26

10/07/2014 06:04 par tellurikwaves

"Masterfully atmospheric and cinematographic..."
8/10
Author: Sindre Kaspersen from Norway
5 December 2013

which he co-wrote with French screenwriter Jérôme Tonnerre and French screenwriter and director Michel Spinosa, is inspired by real events in the life of a French painter, a French filmmaker and a French actress. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival in 2013, was shot on locations in France and is a French production which was produced by producers Olivier Delboch and Marc Missonnier.

It tells the story about a renowned painter and widower named Pierre-Auguste Renoir who lives in a house in the French Riviera with his youngest of his three sons named Claude who also paints and their housemaids. Pierre-Auguste doesn't walk anymore, he worries about his son named Jean whom is serving his country in the First World War, his hand which he paints with is not as good as it once was and he is hearing the voice of his former wife in his dreams, but then one day a woman named Andrée Heuschling walks into his house.

Distinctly and eloquently directed by French filmmaker Gilles Bourdos, this quietly paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a calmly engaging and refined portrayal of a French artist whose inspiration is revitalized when he acquaints a woman who tells him that she has been sent by his spouse to pose for him.

While notable for its distinct, naturalistic and somewhat surreal milieu depictions, reverent and versatile cinematography by Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee, production design by French production designer Benoît Barouh, costume design by French costume designer Pascaline Chavanne and use of sound, colors and light, this dialog-driven and narrative-driven story about a son whom after returning home from war with a wounded foot intending to go back when his foot has fully recovered, befriends his fathers' new model who makes an everlasting and life-altering impression on him, depicts three dense studies of character and contains a great and timely score by French composer Alexandre Desplat.

This somewhat biographical, modestly humorous and romantic, observational and reflective cinematic artwork which is set during a summer in Côte d'Azur, France in the early 1910s, which has been chosen as France's official submission to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014, which conscientiously reconstructs scenes from the life of three prominent 20th century artists and where a lady of gracious femininity who brings a son closer to his father, instigates the birth of a filmmaker and a soldier is coming to terms with what the experience of love has done to him

is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, rhythmic continuity, poignant instrumental tones, incorporation of art in cinema, scenes of Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting Andrée Heuschling and the involving and commendable acting performances by French actors Michel Bouquet, Vincent Rottiers, Thomas Doret and French actress Christa Théret. A masterfully atmospheric and cinematographic homage.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p25

10/07/2014 05:57 par tellurikwaves

Beautifully Impressionistic Film
8/10
Author: doug_park2001 from United States
10 June 2013

Appropriately enough, about the world's most famous Impressionist painter. While it's definitely not for those who strongly favor conventionally plotted drama or fast action, RENOIR consists of immediate realism and puts you right with the Renoir clan on the French Riviera. It's the sort of film that could easily have been made overly artsy and dull, but it's neither.

The entire story takes place in 1915, toward the end of Renoir's life. The relationship between model Andrée Heuschling and son Jean Renoir is, in many ways, more the subject of the story than the painter himself, yet Renoir himself is indispensable as "the boss," a sort of god-like backdrop to the entire cast and story. Having said that, I must add that there is a fair amount on Renoir's artistic processes, and his philosophizing can be applied to all sorts of art- forms as well as painting. One of RENOIR's strongest aspects is its portrayal of a man who is obsessed with his work and has one thing which utterly engulfs and consumes him.

Like many French films, RENOIR succeeds in breaking all sorts of rules. Among them:

--The plot is meandering and somewhat slice-of-life but still gripping;

--Andrée, the "girl from nowhere," and free but neglected youngest son Coco are characters that beg to be developed further, but at the same time, perhaps

it's better that they remain mysterious;

--Lots of female nudity without it seeming the least bit gratuitous: After all, the subject is an artist who often painted naked girls;

--The mood is a successful mesh of somberness, poignancy, and (often laugh-out-loud) humor.

Just about every artsy cliché could be applied to this film, but suffice it to say that it is a beautiful experience. Even simple colors come alive here for the audience as they did for Renoir himself. I'm a word person who's never been a big painting aficionado, but this film made me see the visual arts in a whole new light and may even have converted me to some extent. The soundtrack--quiet, unobtrusive piano scores in the background--also does a great deal to carry this film.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p24

10/07/2014 05:41 par tellurikwaves

Very good
8/10
Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
17 December 2013

Painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet) is an ancient man by 1915. It is WWI, and his two eldest sons, Pierre and Jean (Vincent Rottiers), are at war, while his youngest, Claude (Kid with a Bike star Thomas Doret), just a boy, plays around the estate, claiming to be an orphan (his mother dead and his father an old man). Along comes a beautiful young woman (Christa Theret) who wishes to model for Renoir. Her beauty inspires the old man.

Soon, Jean arrives home and begins an affair with the model (whose name is Andrée Heuschling, but who would later change her name to Catherine Hessling and star in many of Renoir's early films). This is, above all, just a very pretty movie. Very fitting, given its subject. Alexandre Desplat also provides a very gorgeous score. The story isn't hefty, but it's good. The acting is good throughout. France submitted this for the Academy Awards this year, bypassing the much more popular (and frankly better) Blue Is the Warmest Color, but Renoir is a worthy film, as well.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p23

10/07/2014 05:27 par tellurikwaves

A gorgeous movie!
8/10
Author: (richard@berrong.fr) from United States
7 June 2013

This is without question one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. The photography, especially the scenes outdoors, looks like one early Renoir painting after the next. The colors are vivid and lush, and the greens are varied to the nth degree. You could watch this movie with the sound turned off and still have a great time.

Which is not to say that the script and acting are not worth paying attention to. The story is nothing special: During the last years of his life, during World War I, Renoir lived in the South of France, to avoid the German invaders. There he paints a beautiful young woman, whom we get to see in the altogether rather often, to pleasing effect. (The movie never explores the extent to which this has an erotic aspect for Renoir, but since it is made clear that he ended up sleeping with his previous models, we can assume that. He is not just painting rose and pink. He keeps emphasizing that he is painting flesh.)

His middle son, Jean (who will be the famous French film director down the road), comes home from the war on sick leave and eventually falls in love with the new model. That doesn't go particularly well, as she doesn't seem very committed to monogamy with him. The youngest son, Claude (named after Monet), doesn't deal well with his Mother's recent death, or his distant relationship with Renoir. That doesn't get explored very deeply either.

So, in effect, the story threads are handled very Impressionistically as well: little touches of them here and there, but no detailed analysis. The music is often very beautiful, so don't turn off the sound. Don't expect great drama here. The acting is all fine, but there are no in-depth character portraits here - as there are not in Renoir's paintings - and no real drama. It is all very impressionistic, and often in a very beautiful way.See this in a theater if you can. I suspect it will lose a lot reduced to even a 64" TV screen.

I just saw it for a second time, this time on my 46" TV screen. Yes, it does lose a lot, but the color and light are still beautiful. It's a must see movie, but as I wrote before, don't expect much in the way of drama.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p22

10/07/2014 05:20 par tellurikwaves

Renoir: cinema as an impressionist art form
10/10
Author: feodoric from Canada
25 December 2013

This film is deliberately full of short scenes without apparent rational purposes. If there was one or maybe two such scenes, one might see those as plot holes or dead ends, i.e. as flaws.

Personally, I see this film as an impressionistic film about a famous impressionist painter. The very thin storyline along with the numerous vignettes of the daily life of a painter, his model, his sons and his family/maids (eating, painting, cooking, talking about this and that, sleeping alone or together, bathing, or simply being idle), all filmed with the extraordinary beauty of the Côte d'Azur and its unique light which drew so many painters to the region: everything concurs to making of this film a painting on film.

A painting that uses the impressionist technique: myriads of small brush strokes of colours which seem out of place, unexpected or even plain wrong, whose purpose we understand only when we look at the overall canvas once finished. Renoir is such a painting. This is a masterpiece. I found it as mesmerizing as the most beautiful impressionist paintings, whether they are by Renoir or Monet, Degas or Cézanne.

I was literally transfigured by the sheer beauty of the images, and could not care less for the meaning of every little strokes of this large fresco of the beauty of nature in that region blessed by a magic sunlight... There is no pace when contemplating a painting. Everything else stops while one immerses oneself into it.

And if there is one overall purpose for this movie, it is contained in the short epilogue shown at the end of the film. Jean Renoir became the famous film director of international renown, and this movie conveys the circumstances -mostly his relationship with Andrée - that led him to take this career at a time when he saw himself as mere canon fodder with nothing else after the war had ended. There are several ways to tell a story, and this is a new one.

The originality of Renoir (2012), what makes this movie so unique is that it transposes a painting technique to cinema. Do not expect much action. As Pierre-Auguste Renoir says in the movie (paraphrasing) as an almost zen principle: "Do not interfere with the course of nature: picture yourself as a cork carried over by a stream, and let yourself slip away slowly as time flows by...". This is exactly how one should watch that extraordinary movie. A healthy film for the soul.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p21

10/07/2014 05:12 par tellurikwaves

An excellent film that carries a misleading rating
10/10
Author: Red-125 from Upstate New York
19 May 2013

Renoir (2012) written and directed by Gilles Bourdos, tells the story of the aging painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), his young model Andrée (Christa Theret), and his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Andrée is a free spirit. She has no problem posing in the nude, but she makes it clear to everyone that she is a paid model. She has no intention of posing for the honor of it, nor is she ready to become a cook or a maid, as have other models before her.

Naturally, Jean is drawn to the beautiful young woman, and the plot revolves around the relationships among and between the three main characters. This is an extraordinarily beautiful movie, filmed on the scenic Côte d'Azur. War is raging elsewhere in France, but life is peaceful in this region. The pace of the film reflects the pace of life at the time--quiet and slow.

This is a film worth seeing, based on historical fact, and suggesting what motivated the younger Renoir to become the extraordinary film director that he was. For some reason, the IMDb weighted average of this film is a dismal 6.6. (The ratings themselves are much higher, but the weighting system brings the number down.) Don't be discouraged by the low rating. This is a movie worth seeking out and seeing. It will work better in a theater, but, if necessary, see it on DVD. It will repay your viewing.

Š-DR-RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p20

10/07/2014 05:04 par tellurikwaves

excellent drama, may be too slow for some
8/10
Author: beautox from United States
9 April 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Renoir is a film about a person (the artist Renoir), his family, and his later life. Sorry, but there are no explosions, gun battles, or even a fist fight. The emphasis is on character and atmosphere. Thus there are scenes that seem to go nowhere, and conversations that don't seem to have significance. They are here, like the impressionist painter tries to convey a feeling. To this end, the film does very well. The viewer gets into the minds and hearts of the artist, his sons, and his model. Based mostly on fact, there of course may be some inaccuracies that may be discovered. but like an impressionistic painting, the mood is set, and the imagination does the rest.

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p19

10/07/2014 04:59 par tellurikwaves

Reprise of the glow of Renoir's last years
10/10
Author: gradyharp from United States
28 December 2013

Writer/director Gilles Bourdos (with assistance from Jacques Renoir, Michel Spinosa, and Jérôme Tonnerre) bring us the incandescent beauty of a transcendent summer in 1915 in the Côte d'Azur when Pierre-Auguste Renoir began the denouement of the Impressionist period of painting.

More than a simple story, this film is a recreation of the view of nature and of the human figure as bathed in that special light of the countryside of France. It is as much an artwork as it is a biographical view of one of history's great painters.

The Côte d'Azur, 1915. In his twilight years, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet) is tormented by the loss of his wife, the pains of rheumatoid arthritis severely limiting his movement, wheelchair-bound, and the agony of hearing that his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers) has been wounded in the action of WW I.

His household is tended by maids who have been previous models, and his youngest son Coco (Thomas Doret) who suffers from the lack of attention from his still grieving father. But when a young girl miraculously enters his world, the old painter is filled with a new, wholly unexpected energy. Blazing with life, radiantly beautiful, Andrée Heuschling (Christa Theret) will become his last model, who rejuvenates, enchants, and inspires both father and son.

Returning to the family home to convalesce, Jean too falls under the spell of the new, redheaded star in the Renoir firmament. In their Mediterranean Eden - and in the face of his father's fierce opposition - he falls in love with this wild, untamable spirit... and as he does so, within weak-willed, battle-shaken Jean, a filmmaker begins to grow.

Bathed in the cinematography glow of Ping Bin Lee and the subtle, sensual musical score by Alexandre Desplat and greatly enhanced by a pitch perfect cast, this film is more of a mood piece than a biopic. At film's end we are informed of the lives of the characters; Jean married Andrée and they made very successful films together until their divorce (Jean Renoir become one of the most highly regarded film directors in history, dying in 1979 – the year that the then destitute Andrée died, Coco (Claude) Renoir gained fame as a ceramic artist, and the eldest on Pierre became an actor whose son became the brilliant film maker Claude Renoir). It is an important moment in the history of art and a quietly pensive study of the mind of artists and their models. Highly recommended.

Grady Harp, December 13

Š-DR- RENOIR de Gilles Bourdos (2013) p18

10/07/2014 04:47 par tellurikwaves

Vincent Rottiers : Jean Renoir

*

*

Fiche technique
Titre : Renoir
Réalisation : Gilles Bourdos
Scénario : Gilles Bourdos,
Michel Spinosa et Jérôme Tonnerre
Directeur de la photographie : Mark Lee Ping-Bin
Décors : Benoît Barouh
Costumes : Pascaline Chavanne
Exécution des tableaux de Renoir : Guy Ribes
Son : François Waledisch
Musique : Alexandre Desplat
Montage : Yannick Kergoat
Production : Olivier Delbosc et Marc Missonnier
Producteur exécutif : Christine De Jekel
Société de production : Fidélité Productions
Distribution : Euforia Film et Mars Films
Pays : France
Genre : Drame
Durée : 1 h 51
Sortie : France, 25 mai 2012 au Festival de Cannes ;
sortie en salle le 2 janvier 2013.