Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932)

Director: Jean Renoir Starring: Michel Simon, Charles Granval, Jean Daste Genres: Comedy Classics Origin: France Certificate: PG Languages: French Subtitles: English Running Time: 85 min

synopsis

A genuine masterpiece of French cinema that remains as fresh and subversive today as when it was originally released in 1932, Boudu Saved From Drowning is an utterly hilarious and wholly beguiling comedy of manners that also deals with the need for individuality and independence. The film's eponymous hero is an anarchic, freewheeling tramp (Michel Simon) whose suicide is halted by the intervention of kindly Parisian bookseller, Lestingois (Charles Granval). After taking up residence in his benefactor's opulent bourgeois home, the larger-than-life and less than grateful Boudu proceeds to gradually take over Lestingois' life, seducing first his wife and then his mistress. Refusing to be bound by convention, the restless Boudu ultimately returns to his carefree wandering ways. Boasting at its core an outrageous, towering performance by Michel Simon, Boudu Saved From Drowning (remade by Paul Mazursky in 1986 as Down And Out In Beverly Hills) is also marked by legendary director Jean Renoir's gentle shifts in tone encompassing the farcical and the tragic. Moreover, Renoir also employs seductive use of Parisian quayside locations and what many consider to be early experiments with deep focus cinematography.