Rules of the Game - 2022 U.S. Re-Release Trailer

[youtuber]

The 2021 article "Cinematic Explorations on How the Observer’s Vantage Defines Objective and Subjective" touches on this movie.

[suvranilsinghachowdhury]

After years of hearing about Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game lauded by filmmakers and critics for its innovative storytelling, social commentary, and technical brilliance, I threw the film into this year’s Criterion Challenge and finally saw this monument tonight. It’s a pensive comedy of manners, one of those that dares to challenge you by inviting you to spend a couple of hours with a parade of characters you would never want to be with in real life: frivolous, immature, high-society fools, spoiled and immersed in first-world problems. The fact that The Rules of the Game was produced on the eve of World War II makes these characters, in retrospect, even more "deplorable" in their callousness. But satire is not made with heroes or good people, and the delight of this Renoir film is in seeing everything fall apart, in a crescendo of romantic tensions that goes from heated social criticism to almost screwball physical comedy, ending in a tragedy.

Renoir directs everything with a rhythm and brilliance that makes it easy to understand why someone like Satyajit Ray credited it with inspiring him to become a filmmaker. The former is a master at giving attention to myriads of characters and so many situations and details occurring simultaneously. French DOP Jean Bachelet’s camera moves with an elegance that, at the time, was astonishingly innovative. It roams freely through the rooms and follows this cat-and-mouse game between men and women who are looking for each other. It is also very brilliant to think about how much the group hunting sequence anticipates what follows next and in a way creates a parallel between the upper-class French society and the rabbits. The Rules of the Game scrutinizes humanity and its flaws with such finesse and makes you swallow the bitter pill with hilarity, generating some of the best critical laughs ever, in any category.

[Doomlaser]

A truly excellent film about elites being elites, directed by Impressionist painer Auguste Renoir's son, Jean Renoir. Highly, highly recommend. Gosford Park and Downton Abbey are pale imitations