Toni
Tags: romantic

Plot synopsis:
Looking for a job Toni goes from Italy to Southern France. A local woman named Marie takes him in as her tenant and becomes his lover. But when the Spanish guestworker Josepha comes to town, Toni falls for her. To his disappointment Josepha has a wedding with a wealthier man. So Toni marries Marie after all but he cannot hide that Josepha was his greatest love. After Marie has thrown him out of her house he is determined to see Josepha again. He finds her on a farm in the mountains where she lives with her increasingly abusive husband. Josepha is about to run away and for that purpose she steals money from her spouse who catches and hits her. While Toni is around she kills the man. Toni sacrifices himself in order to cover up for her.

Review: A special case in Renoir's oeuvre.
"Toni" did not continue the ferocious works of the early thirties which made Renoir the first director of the era.Gone were the attacks against the bourgeoisie which we found in "La Chienne" "Boudu Sauvé des Eaux" and even in the adaptations of novels from the nineteenth century such as "Madame Bovary" and "Nana".Toni is a special case in Renoir's work.It was probably his most accessible film of the era.It was at once his simplest and yet most complex effort .Produced by Pagnol,in Pagnol's country,La Provence,with some of Pagnol's actors(Andrex was featured in "Angèle" whereas Charles Blavette was part of the cast of "La Femme du Boulanger"),it might look like a Pagnolesque movie but do not rely on appearances.Both the prologue and the epilogue could not be in a Pagnol movie in which the modern world (a bridge,an oil refinery)is almost absent.Unlike Pagnol,there's no humor or bonhomie in "Toni".The characters have not that colorful side which is Raimu's and Fernandel's trademarks.It has been said a lot of times that "Toni" predated the Italian Neorealism by fifteen years .It's true for the prologue and the epilogue which frame the movie : the Italian workers coming to France to find a job in the railway station then on their way to the country of milk and honey,so to speak ,make me think of De Santis's "Risco Amaro" and of course De Sica's "Ladri di biciclette".But,as Jacques Lourcelles wrote,Italian Neorealism's main concern was to depict the immediate present,and Renoir 's movie's core is a story close to what the French called "chansons réalistes ",a field where Frehel and Edith Piaf won fame.The fact that it's based on a true story does not matter much:it could be a short news item."Toni" is ,no more ,no less,the story of characters constantly tearing each other apart.The hero,in love with Josepha,marries Marie and both of them aren't happy.As for Josepha she marries a brute and she lives with her husband and her cousin,a despicable coward.All that Toni and Josepha try to do to escape from an ominous fate backfires against them:the ending is telling since the two lovers ,trying to save each other,precipitate their ruin.Admirable sequences:Toni and Josepha ,on the path,where she claims a bee is in her blouse;Marie,in her boat on the lake,intending to commit suicide ,a scene superbly filmed by Claude Renoir;Toni,desperately running on the bridge.Renoir used to see La Provence as a tower of Babel (he told us so at the beginning of his film) ,the French (or Latin more like) melting pot.Spanish ,Italian guys joined their French brothers.And it's important to notice it,those aliens are not treated as inferiors ,or at least Renoir shows them so.Minor quibble:Charles Blavette is not well cast as Toni;he 's got the famous Provençal accent whereas he is supposed to be an Italian!.
A sad fate for a minor masterpiece.
After a long search, I found "Toni" on DVD from Shanghai, China.
The price was reasonable and so I bought.
Unfortunately, the subtitling was also done in Shanghai.
This leads to such subtitles as "An unfortunate elephant violates Se perfume w." About three-quarters of the way through, the picture begins to come apart electronically, and becomes practically incomprehensible.
Given all the problems with this disc, I am still glad I had the chance to once more see Renoir's simple, beautiful masterpiece.
The subtle distinctions in lighting (especially outdoors), the small but telling camera moves, the reserved yet powerful performances all show the hand of a master at work.
Visconti may have been inspired from working on this film, but his films were always pedal-to-the-metal, all-out mellers.
Renoir takes a story that's as old as the hills and gives it all of his love, respect and considerable talent..
Quel Jumelle elles ont le Toni.
There is more than a touch of the Pagnols here, both geographically and literally, indeed the print I saw even credited Pagnol as 1) a producer or (and more probably) 2, the use of his studio space.
For reasons best known to himself Renoir chose to set a triangular love story in Pagnol turf, le midi and though the result is creditable it is difficult if not impossible to view a movie like this in the 21st century, with our knowledge that by the time it was shot Pagnol had seen his own trilogy on similar themes produced on both stage and screen.
Nevertheless and despite ageing prints this remains well worth seeing and obligatory for the Renoir scholar.
Renoir Is A Grizzly Bear, And Boss Of His Cinema..
Renoir Is A Grizzly Bear, And Boss Of His Cinema.The Foremost Jean, of all jeans, the toni, the boss, of a rather crowded table.
Where this grizzly bear of a director, sets the story for later European Cinema.
In Toni, one of the most enjoyable of Renoir's repertoire.
He tells a story of a gang of characters he introduces to the public and audience.
From my perspective, Renoir, has a very interesting and personalization to crafting his characters, that resonate through out most of his works.Renoir is, I think, the most special Director in early Cinema, and I believe his works will continue to inspire young artists and cinemaphiles, movie makers, and a new direction.
This film, defined European Cinema, and that is why it's a very warm welcome to anyone's film collection.
Nothing short of a masterpiece.Enjoy..
Renoir Tries to Do Pagnol.
A booming Provence draws workers from Spain and Italy, among them Charles Blavette.
He quickly acquires a job at a quarry and a wife, Jenny Hélia, but nurses a passion for the sluttish Celia Montalván, When her uncle dies and Blavette is adamant that he will carry out his wishes that Blavette do his duty as Celia's daughter's godfather, his life goes to pieces.
He thinks he can put it together again with a hare-brained scheme that involves Celia, the baby and him running away to South America, but there are complications in her household he doesn't imagine.Jean Renoir's frequently overlooked movie is competently done, but ignored because, although it clearly has film noir elements in it, including the usual femme fatale, everyone is.
to put it unkindly, so stupidly selfish as to be unworthy of much dramatic consideration.
The situations go beyond pathos into bathos, and if it were not for the grace notes that Renoir inserts into the production, like the workers' songs, and the actors' ability to inhabitant these foolish characters, it would not be worth the time to look at the movie.It's a well-meaning effort, based on some ethnographic notes that an old school friend of Renoir's, Jacques Levert took; Marcel Pagnol is listed as executive producer, so clearly someone thought that this was something on the order of the Fanny trilogy in showing the lower classes as they really were.
Unfortunately, it shows them as dopes and little more..
The first great work of neo-realism is also the first great critique of neo-realism (spoilers).
'Toni' has a secure place in film history as a forerunner to Italian neo-realism: the director of the first neo-realist film, Luchino Visconti, worked as an assistant on this.It is true, there is a matchless vividness in this film; unlike most so-called realists, and like, say, Altman, Renoir knew that realism wasn't simply a case of photographing the real.
So, as well as the bracing location photography, the blazing sun, the breeze rustling the groves, the huge rock quarry, the impassive river, the dusty roads, 'Toni' is full of sounds, of footsteps, bicycles, industrial machines, but mostly of people, talking, singing, fighting, working, playing,  eating.
Even today, seven decades on and all our advances in technology, 'Toni' has the rare ability to convince you of an organic, teeming world.But, even before the term was invented, Renoir exposes the limitations of neo-realism.
Even ignoring the truism that pointing the camera at something is a subjective choice rather than an objective representation, you can't just point a camera at nature or people and expect audiences to remain interested, except the most dedicated Warholian.
So you need a story.Renoir may not accept the sentimentality that would become de Sica's stock-in-trade, but he does offer the hoariest of narratives - the love triangle, and murder.
This is not to say that Renoir doesn't infuse these contrivances with an unheard-of humanity; that the beginning of Toni's affair with Josepha on a grove-bordered by-road isn't one of the most touching scenes in all cinema, Machiavellian flirtation unwittingly sparking tragedy and despair, but at this stage full of fun and play, even if a bee sting, no matter how suggestive, isn't terribly auspicious, suggesting a slow poison breaking down sprightly young bodies; or that the murder scene has an inexorable immediacy that transcends genre.We don't even know that the film is heading in a generic direction until near the end, which makes the murder seem like it arose from realistic inevitability rather than generic necessity.
That said, an artificial narrative frame is fixed onto the realism, and all the artistic decisions reinforce this frame, e.g. the need to focus on this particular character or incident, rather than not.There is a second frame imposed, the subtextual one, if you like, the formal patterning which repeats scenes, images, motifs etc., right down to the circularity of the plot, beginning and ending with singing refugees disembarking a train for a new life, the exact same pan that ends on a bridge.
This is a realistic bridge - it carries the refugees to the town; it is a narrative bridge, where the film's plot harrowingly climaxes; but it is also a symbolic (i.e. non-naturalistic) bridge, of crossing thresholds, connection, escape etc.This is not to disparage Renoir's realism, or the complex humanity it engenders, the moving naturalism he elicits from his wonderful actors.
Rather, it is to praise his critical genius.
The framework he places on his realism, the artifice of certain scenes (the wedding, where Toni and Marie are removed from the local context against a stark black background; the theatrical posturing of Albert as he seduces Josepha; the stylised filming of the murder and the climactic stand-off) all create the film's meaning, whether that is the way human codes stifle freedom (after all, these are refugees who have escaped totalitarianism), or whatever.
Like Monet's portraits of the same phenomena at different periods of the day, Renoir shoots the same characters and locales at discretely different periods of time, revealing change and loss in a changeless environment.
'Toni' is a very great masterpiece..
A love story free of American moral judgments.
Unrequited love is the theme, but in a twist, or from an angle that's decidedly French.
A man marries even when he knows his true love is getting wed to another at the same time and place (a double wedding saves money).
As he will come to admit later, the fault is all his because he didn't love enough to make a play for his amour when she was still available.
At any rate, his love for her stays true even as she takes up with yet another lover in addition to her husband.
Yet there's no judgmental tone as we observe her actions, just a woman doing what she wants, or at times, must.
Our eponymous hero, Toni, finally gets to prove his love through sacrifice for the woman and his godchild, fulfilling the norms of the Latin melting pot that Provence was at this time.
The movie sets up the story wonderfully; indeed, the best part of the film is the efficient and sly way the story is put in motion when all we think is happening is an introduction of characters.
The slower ensuing pace, lack of music, stagy scenes and silent film-like shots all date the movie; it's not a timeless classic.
But it's still an enjoyable, efficient testament to universal themes told through a decidedly un-American prism.