The beginning of La Règle du jeu shows a quotation from Beaumarchais's Le Mariage de Figaro, and although this play is undoubtedly an influence, Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne (1833) is more so. The film was made a very short time before World War II and its depiction of an animal (particularly rabbit) cull as sport is a prediction, or a cinematic metaphor of, the atrocities to come, as are the dancing corpses in La Fête de la Colinière (Robert's country retreat in Sologne), and Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre played on the Pianola belonging to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio).
Robert is the husband of Christine (Nora Gregor), who is also loved by André Jurieux (Roland Toutain) and Octave (Jean Renoir), who is also an old friend of André: obviously, Robert is unable to control humans, so he delights in clockwork treasures not only such as his Pianola, but also his mechanical fauvette (warbler), and – la pièce de résistance – his orchestrion.
This remarkable film (without the necessity to repeat what others have said so many times) concerns love (or lust), class differences, the multidude of lies told by every conceivable source, the ability of rulers not only to triumph but to triumph over their triumphs. There is no hope, we just continue.
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