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A Day in the Country (1936, Fr.)
(aka Partie de Campagne) (short)
In writer/director Jean Renoir's compelling, short
(uncompleted) romantic comedy-drama based upon a Guy de Maupassant
short story, about a summer-afternoon love affair in 1860 along the
banks of the Seine:
- the sequence of a summer trip to escape the city
with a countryside picnic, taken by the family of middle-class
Parisian shop-owner Monsieur Dufour (André Gabriello), including
his wife Madame Dufour (Jane Marken) and their engaged daughter,
young Henriette Dufour (Sylvia Bataille) - who was happiest when
standing on a swing in motion
- the seduction sequence when persistent and amorous
local worker Henri (Georges Saint-Saens) separated Henriette away
from her family and convinced her to take a boat-ride with him: ("I
did so want to go boating...We're just gliding along. It's so quiet
here. I feel it would be a sin to make a noise and break the silence" -
she told him)
- as he rowed along, he urged her to stop along the
banks of the Seine ("Wouldn't you like to get out - to stretch
our legs?"), and at first she was resistant - but then he convinced
her to stop to listen to the birds; as they walked along, he mentioned
that the spot was familiar to him: ("I often come here; I call
it my study") - and then he forced himself upon her during an
extreme close-up of her face kissing him; he sexually took her (off-screen)
followed by a dissolve back to a view of them lying together
Henriette and Henri Regretful Years Later
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- in the film's epilogue and flash-forward years later,
it was established that Henriette had lovelessly married dim-witted
and boring Anatole (Paul Temps); she met up again with love-sick
Henri at the exact same spot where they had spent a single afternoon
together; filmed with intense emotion via direct and reverse shots
of their two faces, they happily remembered their brief idyllic
time together, their lost love, and regretting what might have
been between them (as tears welled up in Henriette's left eye)
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Young Henriette on Swing
Boat Ride with Henri and Love-Making
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