CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS Movie Review

La Kermesse Heroique

When the Spanish army invades Flanders in the early 17th century, the men of one small town act on their cowardly impulses by hiding; the women, however, prepare a feast—and themselves—to appease the invaders in high style. An amazingly frank sexual comedy that still startles today, Carnival in Flanders was directed in 1935 by Jacques Feyder, who later wasted no time in departing France ahead of the German invasion. Feyder was well aware that this subversive comic scenario for “collaboration” with—and distraction of—an occupying army would not have gone down well with the Nazi's propaganda machine. (It was in fact banned by Goebbels in 1939.) The production itself—wittily designed in the style of Breughel paintings like “The Wedding Dance”—was supervised by Marcel Carné (Children of Paradise) and photographed by Harry Stradling, who would go on the become one of Hollywood's most legendary cinematographers.

NEXT STOP … Children of Paradise, Rembrandt, Tous les Matins du Monde

1935 90m/B FR Francoise Rosay, Louis Jouvet, Jean Murat, Andre Aleme, Micheline Cheirel; D: Jacques Feyder; C: Harry Stradling; M: Louis Beydts. New York Film Critics Awards '36: Best Foreign Film; Venice Film Festival '36: Best Director (Feyder). VHS HTV, MRV, HHT