PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE by JEAN RENOIR | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE by JEAN RENOIR

I did enjoy this charming film by Jean Renoir (who also acted in it, a good deal changed from the adorable little boy, subject of paintings and photographs in Les Collettes, August Renoir’s farmhouse in the South of France, which we visited this spring.

It is a close and faithful rendition of Maupassant short story Une Partie de Campagne, available online in English translation, though not without typos, alas.

Though it is the tale of a lyrical, country interlude, it is also heartbreaking. A working class 18 year old Parisian, Henriette, spends a day in the country. Two youngsters, of a higher social class, see her and her mother, and decide to seduce them.

Henri seduces Henriette, they have a sweet, intense sexual encounter. And part.

Henriette married a slow lout.”Years passed with Sundays as bleak as Mondays. Anatole married Henriette.” I think of Yeats’ line on Helen of Troy “Helen being chosen found life flat and dull. And later had much trouble from a fool.”

One Sunday, a couple of years later, Henriette takes Anatole to the bower where she had her sweet, secret encounter with Henri. Henri goes there too, coincidentally. He tells her that he has never forgotten that afternoon. It was the happiest day of his life. She says that she thinks of it every night.

So, in the characteristic Maupassant twist, the tragic seduction of an innocent young girl ends up having unexpected emotional repercussions for the seducer as well.

The film also reminded me of Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, which I have seen several times, but which is so sad that I doubt I will ever see it again. Nina, loved by clever Konstantin whom she has no romantic feelings for, falls in love with a famous though mediocre writer.

He sees a plot for a short story. “ “A young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a seagull, and she’s happy and free, like a seagull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom.” Meanwhile, Nina, in an excess of young devotion, tells him in chilling words, ““If you should ever need my life, come and take it.”

He does. He tires of her, discards her, her life is ruined. She no longer feels worthy of a good man’s love.

The foreknowledge of this fate hanging over Henriette spoilt the otherwise charming and idyllic film for me. It’s wonderful to be young–but, fortunately, one is only young and innocent once. It’s safer not to so.

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