![]() It's physically painful to paint, but his household is an emotionally bereft one, too. ![]() Wealthy and famous he may be, but Renoir's bound to a wheelchair and his bandaged hands, so crucial to his existence, are gnarled with rheumatoid arthritis. She's on her way to her new job as a model for Renoir, but we're reminded of what else is happening in that country when Andrée pedals past a German soldier hanging in effigy.įar away from the carnage of the Ypres trenches, Andrée's new employer is a painter in decline. We meet Andrée Heuschling (Christa Théret), a beautiful young redhead cycling through the countryside. Director Gilles Bourdos and co-writer Jérôme Tonnerre make Pierre-Auguste Renoir's work matter again by putting an aging man's passionsincluding Mediterranean light, brilliant pigments and nubile feminine shapesinto an emotional and historical context. Such was the case watching Renoir, a ravishing and sensuous imagining of one summer late in the life of the great painter. Sometimes one has to fight off prejudices while watching a film. After the relentless exploitation of his work for wall calendars, coffee mugs and beach house décor, his paintings seem kitschy, sentimental and, as a friend once sniffed, redolent of the boudoir. Once I'd moved on to the likes of Cézanne, Courbet and Manet, I didn't return to Renoir's boating party luncheons, dances in the country and naked, naked girls. He was my teenage gateway into French painting, an early enthusiasm to be discarded.
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