getting it all by giving in
by
Douglas Messerli
Jacques
Feyder, Robert A. Stemmle, and Bernard Zimmer (screenplay, based on a story by
Charles Spaak), Jacques Feyder (director) La Kermesse
héroïque (A Carnival in Flanders) / 1935
It
may be hard to imagine a proto-feminist film, directed by a man, coming out of
France in 1935, but that’s very much what Jacques Feyder’s Carnival in Flanders is.
Perceiving that the men of Boom will do
nothing to protect them, the women, headed
by the Burgomaster’s wife, declare their own war, wherein they plan to readily
woo the rowdy visitors with wine, food, and sex.
Alright, these early feminists used the
sleights of their sex to get what they wanted, but they have, nonetheless, shown
their power and control over their menfolk. In this somewhat inverted Lysistrata, the women not only take
control but get awarded through the love of the far more virile Spanish, for their
actions.
Feyder was vilified by many for his
themes; and, two decades later, Truffaut singled the film out in a broadside against
some French classics: “In this regard, the most hateful film is unarguably La Kermesse héroïque because everything
in it is incomplete, its boldness is attenuated; it is reasonable, measured,
its doors are half-open, the paths are sketched and only sketched; everything in
it is pleasant and perfect.” One must remember that only a year after this
French-German sponsored production, the Nazis were in Paris, and collaboration
would become a real issue. Both the film’s director, Feyder, and its lead,
Rosay fled to Switzerland.
But
watching it yesterday, I truly enjoyed its lusty implications, and applauded
the women of Boom for their abilities to save their otherwise exemplary lives
by simply using the ploys of their gender. Moreover, in its reliance on the
tradition of Dutch painting, this gentle comedy tells us more about life in 17th
century Flanders than reading many an historical tract. Surely it was a
patriarchal, bourgeois society, but in Feyder’s joyful rendition it was allowed
to enjoy itself if only for a night.
Los Angeles,
December 30, 2016
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