A note on Renoir and the world's quirkiest and maybe toughest race

First, a note on yesterday's post: I may have overstated the matter in blaming the Nazis for making it impossible for Renoir to finish A Day in the Country. Not that I'm apologizing to the Nazis! But, having watched some of the supplementary material about A Day in the Country, there's more to the story: Yes, Renoir abandoned the film and moved to the U.S. during the war and never returned to the project, which his crew and others worked into a 40-minute feature. But it was primarily problems with weather and funding that put the film on ice - and Renoir had to move onto other commitments. However, the producer, who was trying to raise the funds to complete the film, was a Jewish man and as the Germans took over the government of France it was impossible for him to get funding and he had to move to hiding in the south of France. Only after the war was he able to raise the money, and by that time Renoir was out of the picture, so to speak.

Last night saw the documentary The Barkley Marathons, about the world's quirkiest and maybe toughest endurance run (covering 5 marathon-length loops over trails and rugged, hilly terrain in Tennessee), not exactly a run but a combination of mountaineering, orienteering, hiking, climbing, running, and pure survivalism. Race times out at 60 hours (2 1/2 days), allows only 40 entrants per year, and there are often no finishers. Runners will have particular interest in this film, but others would like it to, esp if, like M., you are fan of all moves about survival and struggle against the elements, such as Everest and Meru. As movie, it breaks no new ground, but the filmmakers do a good job telling the story of the race through the viewpoint of the participants (although why didn't they interview any of the women?), and the got good footage of the participants during the race at various points, including some nighttime footage, and harrowing footage of the very fit participants struggling into the hq (they must past the starting gate at the start of each of the 5 loops), as we watch a few deciding to give up the quest, they can literally take no more, they're at the end of their endurance.

An unfinished gem - Renoir's A Day in the Country

Another thing for which to blame the Nazis, in case we needed one more, is that French director Jean Renoir decamped for America without ever completing his 1936 film, A Day in the Country, so what we have via the gods of Criterion is a 40-minute version that shows the promise of being a great film but of course leaves so much undeveloped that it reaches for the stars but never gets there. The film, based on a de Maupassant story that I've never read, is about a family of four (plus a shop assistant) from Paris who take a weekend jaunt into the countryside and stop at a little country in for a "picnic" (what's the term? dejournee sur les herbes? - same as the title of Renoir pere's great painting?). A couple of country boys who work at the inn spy the Parisians and make plans to distract the men and seduce the ladies (young, sweet girl, daughter of shopkeeper and destined to marry the doltish shop assistant, who plays the role far too grossly for this film; her mother, a flighty, bossy, silly woman who willingly throw off her taciturn husband for the fling w/ the much younger man). There are a lot of themes touched on here - country v city, class issues, miscommunications, sexual energy - and we can see that Renoir was building toward an ending of great pathos as the characters return to the scene years later and look back on the missed opportunities of their lives - but the movie just sketches this in, necessarily. It's also a great example throughout of how well Renoir worked en plein air - beautiful pastoral scenes, that make a nice contrast with his cultivated pastoral in the great Rules of the Game. The movie unfortunately has a horrible, cloying musical score that intrudes rather than heightens the emotion of the film, and I have to believe Renoir never approved the score. Still worth watching - but not if it's your first Renoir film.