Based on Maxim Gorki’s novel, the hugely popular Les bas-fonds, made in the heady, optimistic spirit of the Popular Front, testified to Renoir’s commitment to the Left.
Five friends, united first by poverty and then by an unexpected lottery win, abandon Paris to renovate a ruin on the banks of the Marne, transforming it into a ‘guinguette’ (open-air café). They pursue a utopian community, which gradually falls apart.
“Ik heb vaak gefoeterd op de wreedheid van de film zonder in te zien dat die wreedheid ook haar (Mizoguchi-achtige) keerzijde had, namelijk compassie. Tegenwoordig zie ik het licht van de cinema eerder als een ruimte voor verzoening of zelfs boetedoening.”
“Unemployment is the vital question. [...] Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.”
Charles Chaplin in a newspaper in 1931
When a wrongly accused prisoner barely survives a lynch mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.