La Ronde

Very light, breezy and enjoyable. The structure makes the whole thing move by at a pretty solid clip, and it's really enjoyable to see each character play out two different romances. My favorite sequence was probably the one with Danielle Darrieux discussing infidelity with her husband, but they're all very worthwhile. As you'd expect from any Ophuls film, it's absolutely beautiful to look at.

A light, funny, sexy romance/comedy with a clever plot device. The film has many intriguing facets... not just the symmetries, but also the asymmetries. Ophuls is working with what appears to be a formal structure, but doesn't mind bending the rules once in a while. It's interesting to see how each person functions in two different relationships, themselves always being consistent in character but placed in a different context. And I hardly need to mention that the photography is fantastic.

While the 'endless carousel' premise does get a bit tiresome and predictable, this is only to a limited degree as each new story offers something different but with one foot firmly in the past. Narratively, it's a fun film to follow along. Anton Walbrook as the master of ceremonies is on point as he appears both trustworthy and mischievous.

Ah so much fun. This is what I wanted Le Plaisir to be. A playful meditation on love, time, memory, and pleasure. Like the thematic compass to understanding Ophuls’ body of work. The bedroom scene with the married couple is one of the most beautifully shot scenes I’ve seen - I will be rewatching that for the rest of my life I think. Great to see Barrault in something else.

there is so much fanciful winking in this movie that i'm surprised everyone's eyes didn't fall out.

I liked the individual episodes well enough (the married couples' being probably my favorite) but I could have done without the meta-isms and the narrator. It looks fantastic.

Perhaps a little too cute and contrived, but the acting is superb, and Walbrook--as the master of ceremonies--is the ideal sophisticated guide to this sad sweet world of lust and romance.

Who would have thought that a movie about a random assortment of people who are screwing each other could be so classy, literate and elegant? But wait, Ophüls then outdoes this a year later with his even classier Le Plaisir which prominently features prostitutes.

A delightful film with the gorgeous visuals you can always count on from Ophuls. Everything in it is well done, but it feels a little too fluffy to be a truly great engrossing movie. It's as if Ophuls thought of a great premise and got so caught up in making it work beautifully that he forgot to give it a point. It's still plenty enjoyable, though.

I could have done without Walbrook's "all-knowing interlocutor"--who SINGS. Comparisons--unfortunately--with Maurice Chevalier are inevitable...the movie would have been better off without him. But it's still a delightful romp through an ineffably Parisian 1900-Vienna. The highlight is Danielle Darrieux's turn as a married woman pretending to be prim and proper. And as her husband, Fernand Gravey's pomposity is rather endearing. Jean-Louis Barrault's insanely "creative" poet is hilarious.

It's all exceedingly charming and witty, partly through Walbrook's presence throughout, but mostly because it has a certain world-weary amusement at human frailty. It's tough on many of the characters, especially the men, but it's accompanied by the knowledge that we're all pretty much like these people.

This was mildly amusing but I really only liked the fourth wall breaks.

If Ernst Lubitsch had his kind of juvenile naughty touch for his work, Max Ophüls had a more sensual touch to his naughty business. La ronde (1950) is a perfect example of this. Personally the Lubitsch Touch works best for my sensitivities. With Ophüls you often have to look a little deeper to catch the hook, as it's often fluffed over by a overly romanticized mood, which in this case makes this a highly elegant and floating series of courtships, and that is something I more respect than love.

The script and cast yielded some nice, tender moments but overall I thought the concept and story of this was trashy.

* par une sorte de nostalgie de la vertu - elles souffrent de leur indignité * "Le bonheur ? Pardon, mademoiselle, mais le bonheur n'existe pas. D'ailleurs, ce sont précisément les choses dont on parle le plus qui n'existent pas... L'amour est une de ces choses là."

As usual with Ophuls, the technical merits are beyond reproach. The narrative involving a series of affairs is breezy and charming, and Ophuls makes a rather cynical point about the nature of love that belies its agreeable surface, but when all is said and done, it feels less substantial than his other great works from his late prime period and seems overly self satisfied. Nonetheless, there are several noteworthy scenes, especially the ones with the chambermaid and Darrieux.

The bits with the husband are v good The poet is insufferable The bits with the chambermaid are probably the best dated

Film as life, life as theater, theater as artifice... these seem to be the recurring themes for Ophuls, and this might be the quintessential Ophuls film (he would reuse the same structure to slightly more uneven effect in La Plaisir, and he would return to the themes of performance and artifice again most prominently in his swan song Lola Montes.) From the deliciously self-aware introduction i pretty much knew this was going to be great, and it didn't disappoint. It's even sort of a musical!

cesitli kadin-erkek iliskilerindeki ask, ayni kisiler, farkli rollerle bir dongu icine sokulup teatral hava icinde islenmis.

Oscar Straus' theme music is the beautiful.

Fun and light, with a more honest take on romance and trysts than you'll find in most films of its era. The problem for me was that each successive vignette felt less and less interesting because there doesn't seem to be any overall point other than what's obvious from the intro. I was interested in checking this out after hearing that Ophuls is a master of camera, and in this respect, it did not disappoint

A very French one this is, in which everyone is sleeping with each other in 1950 yet no one seems to be going to hell. It's Ophuls so the photography is gorgeous and the sets are lavish. And of course everyone is very pretty and fetching to look at. It can be a bit over-contrived at times and the narrator character (though charmingly played) is wholly unnecessary. But ultimately it's a nice piece of candy.

#677

The circle of chlamydia is disclosed in this one, which obviously is sleazy fun at times for everyone involved, but also rather tedious in the end.. As one would expect the cinematography is beautiful, Ophüls' direction fluent as ever and the meta-aspect kind of cool

636

It's unfair, but I can't help comparing every French film I see to Les Enfants du Paradis. La Ronde was good, but the circle of infidelity and mistaken identity or past loves is approached in too lighthearted of a fashion. I need a little drama and I need stronger humor than the comparison of a broken down carousel to the impotency of a nervous lover. And Stendhal sounds like he's not worth reading. But then again I'm not one for laissez-faire. I enjoy opinions and advice.

612

# 634