Thursday, December 29, 2022

La vie de plaisir (1944)

The owner of a nightclub marries the daughter of an aristocrat in financial straits. Married life in this new milieu is not an easy one.

Purportedly it's a critique of the hypocrisy of the traditional upper classes in contrast with the greater honesty of a self-made man. Of course the "aristocrats", who run (badly) an oil conglomerate, are just as bourgeois as their "commoner" counterpart, and that's the crux of the matter. The film was banned for insulting the Church. Actually, it does worse: rather than criticizing an older order, it shows how it cannot survive while immersed in a new one. That new one is Capitalism, and it imposes its logic on the whole of society. So, it's an interesting film, though its schematism detracts somewhat from its entertainment value.

Rating: 51

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