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