Movies: Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir didn`t like black. The French impressionist painter preferred friendly colors and liked to draw a nice world, flowers, fruit and lots of women. The movie "Renoir" shows an episode of the artist`s late life on the French Riviera (imdb). The aging artist, now a widower, who is working with a new model, gets a visit by his son Jean. The later famous movie director Jean has a temporary leave from WWI front because of a war injury.

There is not much of a plot. Nothing happens.  You could see the film as a view on the autumn of life of an successful artist and a study about the beauty of women. "Renoir" represents a hedonistic philosophy: The "Carpe Diem (Make use of the day)" of the old Romans or "You chose your life".

You could a see a lot of cooking & eating, spot the allure of a lush Mediterranean garden and young and naked female models. There is a characteristic dialogue between Jean and the model: "When I see the paintings of my father´s models, I could eat them" declared the prospective movie maker. "Do you want to eat me?" answered the model.

The flamboyant cinematography puts all of this in adequate pictures. The indoor shots are mostly in ochery tones, which gives a nice contrast to the green of the outside and the vanilla skin of the young nudes.