Red ochre, burnt sienna, warm sepia. At times sounding like an artistic rendition of the Dulux shade selection (or perhaps a french adaptation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat), Gilles Bourdos’ Renoir is keen to really drive home the subject matter. Just in case you forget that the film’s title character is, in fact, a painter.
Unless you count the indulgent smatterings of nubile flesh, countryside frolics and fruit-eating, very little actually seems to happen in this biopic. Rather than Renoir himself (Michel Bouquet), the portrayal focuses almost entirely on his last muse, Andrée Heuschling (Christa Théret). Her frustration at serving only as aesthetic inspiration is the most captivating aspect to Renoir’s story, and Théret’s luminescent performance provide a sense of rebellion and conflict to an otherwise meandering few hours.
Inbetween contemplating the worldly balance of art, war, love and death, Bourdos even shoehorns references to the beginnings of French cinema; Renoir’s own disinterest in the medium is apparent in his comment that “The French will never be film-makers”. A titter-inducing gag, but in the hands of a French director, one which betrays an unwarranted level of confidence in what proves to be a distinctly mediocre film. Renoir should be so much bigger than it is, but Mark Ping Bing Lee‘s succulent cinematography only just manages to serve as a crutch for patchy scriptwriting and a languid pace.