Director: Gilles Bourdos
Talent: Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Vincent Rottiers
Release Date: 28th June 2013
Renoir is less about the French Impressionist painter to whom the film owes its title and more about his final source of inspiration, his muse Andrée ‘Dedée’ Heuschling. Set in Renoir’s idyllic country estate in Cagnes-sur-Mer, with WW I raging in the distant north, this biopic of the last four years of his life finds him infirm with rheumatoid arthritis and wheelchair-bound. Enter Dedée, a passionate, insolent, aspiring actress-model-dancer, who would inspire both father and son, Jean, to create paintings and films respectively. The curious relationship between Renoir and Jean – who would go on to become a great filmmaker (La Grande Illusion, La Règle du jeu) – is one of subtle artistic rivalry, but one that is also guarded and cautious. Michel Bouquet shines as the vain and headstrong artist who triumphs over pain, old age, and even war through the celebration of beauty for beauty’s sake, feminine sensuality, and creative revival.
