Focus: A Film Review (1950-1951)

185 Montevideo ; for the best scenario and for the best decor at Venice last year. 1 find it difficult to accept any of these awards as well-merited. The decor is Hollywood fantastical, the scenario, evidently set on getting as many bedroom scenes as possible into one film, assumes that Destiny (personified by Anton Walbrook under a number of disguises) arranges illicit love affairs between virtuous and vicious indiscriminately. The street woman, the soldier, the shop girl, the poet, the actress and the count are all involved in a roundabout of “amour”, in which the count finds himself eventuallyaccepting the attentions of the street woman, which was where we came in and so we go out. As for being the best French film, the only thing truly French about it is the galaxy of talent, including Jean Louis Barrault, Gerard Philipe, Odette Joyeux and others, so dreadfully wasted. One can admire the polish of some of the technique without conceding that it is either typically French in the prize class ; or worthy of the talent of Max Ophuls, the Saarbrucken-born maker of Letter From An Unknown Woman. V. CLOCHEMERLE Starring: Felix Oudart, Brochard, Saturnine Fabre. Director: Pierre Chenal. Distributors: Blue Ribbon Films. Certificate : X . Category : A. Running time : 80 minutes approx. Good Friday once was a day on which Christian countries suspended secular pastimes and occupations in order to pay reverence to the Saviour of mankind whose great act of sacrifice that day commemorates. London this year signalised the day by admitting to the West End a film of peculiar vulgarity in which disrespect to religion was a strong element. It would be easy7 but unjust to blame the Censor for the contents of this film. At the best of times his task is an unenviable one. It is not his business to express views as to artistic or cultural standards in films. His main business is to safeguard public good order. This he does under three main heads : religion, politics and social order. He is not to be blamed when a film is moronic anymore than he is to be praised if a film is what some people term “broadminded” (another term in that context for skating on morally thin ice). In neither case has he done more than to assure that the exhibition of a film will not cause a public riot. With regard to Clochemerle, one has to be grateful that so much that is offensive to religion has been cut out and if one or two scenes that are verging on the sacrilegious still remain, that is due as much to the natural ignorance of the Censors of the theological implications of the scenes as to the superior professional knowledge of the Catholic, who will instinctively invest such scenes with a significance which the non-Catholic may well fail, to notice. Though it is not the business of the Censor to express opinions about the quality of the film it is certainly the business of the responsible adult cinema-goer to refuse to tolerate on the screens he patronises films that are basically vulgar and coarse. It will be sufficient to say that the theme of the film is anti-clericalism, symbolised by the erection of a public urinal in the square outside the church. The radicals who use this convenience are opposed by pious and embittered spinsters, who are thus made the protagonists of Religion versus Progress and Commonsense. It may be that the reading of the book from which this film is derived is capable of providing genuine amusement to adult minds, but the moment it is turned into a film, this unsavoury situation is offered to the salacious sniggering of every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks that a French film is synonymous with impropriety. An example of this type is the man I heard of who regretted that he did not understand French as he thought that he was “missing something spicy”. In its present version Clochemerle labours under two defects. It supposes that religious practice and devotion are the refuge of sex-starved and embittered spinsters who constantly prey upon the innocence and youth of those youngsters likely to find a spouse. It also assumes that the mention and function of micturition is screamingly7 funny and greatly daring. There is no accounting for tastes, but I imagine