Review: Renoir

Directors: Gilles Bourdos
Cert: TBC Running time: 111 mins

An atmospheric insight into the motivations of two great artistic minds or simply the story of how a naked woman lounging about the house waiting to be painted – in between grand dinners and dreamy rustic picnics – caught the imagination of a septugenarian painting legend (Pierre-Auguste Renoir, played by Michel Bouquet) and his son, the as-yet-unknown but soon-to-be-iconic filmmaker, Jean Renoir (the handsome Vincent Rottiers)? Both arguments have merit in any appraisal of Gilles Bourdos’s portrayal of events from a sun-kissed summer of 1915. The low-key, undramatic depiction of blooming love is made very easy on the eye thanks to the cinematographer’s Impressionistic touches on external scenes. ★★★

[mrb]