GRADE: 8.5
A bookseller saves a tramp from drowning and shelters him, but the tramp’s odd behavior starts to wear everyone down.
Original Title: Boudu sauvé des eaux
Director: Jean Renoir
Country: France
THOUGHTS:
There’s a lot to admire about this one. Michel Simon’s beastly, childlike, charming, and dangerous Boudu is an irresistible concoction. The backdrop (France in the early 30s) is utterly fascinating and delightful to experience. But Renoir’s non-judgmental, non-moralizing direction is what really gives it power. Boudu is a willful free-spirit and non-conformist who at times comes across as admirable and at other times seems both devilish and buffoonish. He’s the embodiment of the other characters’ hidden desires and fears. He acts purely on impulse, a lifestyle no decent person could ever maintain, but one that offers a seemingly cathartic freedom from social constraints.