'Renoir': Impressionism, Rapturously Realized
(Later, after this movie's account ends, Jean will begin his career as a silent-film director. His initial leading lady will be Andree, under the screen name Catherine Hessling.)
Tensions arise between Pierre and Jean's disparate demands for Andree's body, yet Renoir is no melodrama. Despite sporadic flare-ups, the movie is primarily — and appropriately — picturesque. It's a valentine to both Renoirs, and also to Andree, who by all accounts inspired the painter to a final, unexpected burst of genius.
Director and co-writer Gilles Bourdos sagely hired Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing (known for working with Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wong Kar-wai) to craft the film's lustrous shots. His camera glides through the scenes, emphasizing the artfulness of his framing by shooting through windows, curtains, leaves and other semi-porous barriers.
Renoir doesn't present a particularly dynamic tale, and its attempts at stage-like drama — notably the sometimes epigrammatic dialogue — can seem overdone. But the performances are assured, the ambiance impeccable and the themes resonant.
Bourdos has demonstrated his storytelling skills in such films as 1998's Disparus, a historical spy saga; Renoir, by contrast, is less attuned to narrative than to images and ideas, notably in its contrast of creation and destruction.
Art critics have complained that his loosely rendered nudes depict "decomposing flesh," Renoir notes, as World War I does real violence to skin and sinew, bones and brains. Looks like that's another one the reviewers got wrong.