LA KERMESSE HEROIOQUE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 414, 30 May 1947, Page 16

LA KERMESSE HEROIOQUE

(Films-Sonores Tobis)

OST New Zealanders who take more than a perfunctory interest in the cinema will have heard the claim advanced from time

to time that it is the French who make the best, and if not the best, certainly the most individual, films in the world. It is, unfortunately, a claim that has seldom been put to the test in this country, But see La Kermesse Heéroique if you can possibly get the chance (it is here at last and about to be released), and I think you may be willing to concede the* point, or at any Tate to agree that the claim is not idly made, One French swallow does not make a movie summer; but by comparison, with even the better-class Hollywood product, La Kermesse Héroique is like a fine piece gf hand made pottery alongside a mass-produced factory article. One requirement of a work of art is that it should be able to stand the test of time. La Kermesse Héroique, directed by Jacques Feyder in 1936 (when it

won the Grand Prix award of the French cinema), has stood the test of 11 years without showing any of the expected scars, One superficial reason why the film seems not in the least out-of-date is that it is not a modern story with modern fashions, but a so-called "costume piece"-the setting is the Netherlands under Spanish rule in the early 17th century-and a ruff or a plumed hat or an embroidered stomacher therefore looks as fresh and appropriate now as it did 11 years ago or will 11 years hence. But a deeper reason is that the film’s theme is ageless and universal; for the sake of safety (as Graham Greené once pointed out) such a film may present life in fancy-dress and with a good deal of the satiric exaggeration which is a characteristic of the French cinema, but basically it is presenting life as it is. ‘ * * » [LEST this may make La Kermesse Héroique sound solemn, let me hasten to say that nothing could be further from the truth. Here is not only film-making at its finest-a clarity of style to delight the connoisseur, subtlety

of acting, beauty of settings-but here also (unless I am very much mistaken) is popular entertainment and certainly very rich fun. Indeed, I can think of nothing more honestly bawdy that has come my way on the screen: one is reminded more than once of Balzac and his Contes Drolatiques. Fortunately perhaps for the Censor’s peace of mind, the sound-track is in French; and the sub-titles in English, though they enable you to follow the thread of the story easily, don’t give very much away. But what goes on is quite plain enough for intelligent adults to see, What does go on, in fact, is briefly this: Word comes to a Flemish town, which so far has escaped the terrors of Spanish-invasion, that a high Spanish dignitary and his retinue of soldiers are advancing to spend the night there. The Mayor and his council and the rest of the burghers are thrown into a state of blue funk; the gallant home guard, full of fire-eating patriotism when no danger threatens, hide their weapons; and almost without exception the men of the town, remembering tales of murder, rape, and pillage, scuttle for safety and take to their beds. So later, as one might put it, do the women, But not till later. The Mayor’s wife gathers the women together, tells them that since their men have deserted them they must protect themselves and their town by using feminine wiles and making a ‘virtue of necessity. Theref6re, ‘when

the dreaded Spaniards approach, the women go out to the gates to greet them, with wine and flowers and tender glances, offering the invaders the warmest of possible welcomes. It is enough to add that passive resistance can never have succeeded better. bd a bad HIS thoroughly adult theme has been treated by Jacques Feyder with great subtlety of humour and at the same time with the most disarming frankness -a combination which, to my mind at least, rids it of offensiveness. Yet if this were nothing more than a spicy Gallic comedy I would not go out of my way, as I am possibly doing, to recommend it. There is, however, a great deal more to La Kermesse Héroique than a story . of women who turn the tables on men by being women. There are, for example, the performances, all of them good but outstanding in the case of Francoise Rosay, as the Mayor’s wife; there is the hint of poignancy which underlies her cuckolding of her pompous, craven husband; there is even a theme of tender young romance, very innocent and charming in the midst of all the libertine conduct; between the Mayor’s daughter and a_ youthful painter. And then there is the exquisite photography, the rich period detail of costumes and settings (many of them based on the old Flemish paintings). (continued on next page) é

(continued from previous page) I have, in fact, seen nothing quite to equal the texture of this film, sensuous in feeling vet crisp and clean in outline, since Laughton’s Rembrandt. When it comes to conveying a _ sense of time and place against an_ historical background, a Hollywood film (the British sometimes do rather better) cannot touch a Continental one. This Flemish town and the people in it, though supposedly centuries old, are not plaster and lath and extra players in fancy dress: they are, for the time being, real people in a real situation. If there is any chance now of our getting a series of French films in New Zealand-and that, I presume, depends on public support-no better example of the French school of cinema could have been chosen for a start. (When, and if, you see "La Kermesse Héroique," you will possibly find the title translated a$ "‘The Heroic Sex.’’ Though inaccurate, this is not a bad stab at it: "Kermesse" is actually the French variant of the Flemish word for a special kind of fair or merrymaking, which makes the title literally "The Heroic Fair.’’ It is recorded that, when first shown in London some years ago, the film ran for more than six months to record houses.)