Toni

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10/12/2010 Wonderfully executed tragic romance from Renoir. I find that Renoir doesn't usually attain that level of transcendence that I hope for, but most of his films are very watchable (a couple of duds like The River notwithstanding). Here we have fine performances, fine cinematography, and a fine story with an engaging web of relationships. Not much to say, just a solid movie all around. See more 07/06/2009 Old but new. Crumbs! See more 04/23/2009 Minor Renoir. Full of cliches, but completely engaging throughout. See more 09/26/2008 Lesser Renoir, which is better than most people's best. Remarkable photography and a fine story managed to elevate this above the often grating performances--definitely worth watching. See more 09/26/2008 I have a lot of mixed feelings about this film but as it is, it does display a sense of rawness that really makes cinema into a tool for everyone, it puts our ideas and perspectives into disarray in what it displays, a re-enactment, a narrative and a documentary at the same time. The plot is very all over, with certain subplots that seems to get more attention but the focus is very clear. Overall, I can see Visconti influence when watching Ossessione. Another element is the style, which is nothing, it feels like one nice ditty that takes a non noteworthy standing in the orbit of art when compared to the magnifique of Tchaikovsky or so on. It is that drab bearing that really allows us to interpret this film in its fundamental component and that is a non-judgmental study of the emotions of these people. See more 11/07/2007 "toni" is jean renoir's pioneering stimulus to italian neo-realism under the aroma of picturesque backwater surrounded with the rural pastures, the barren cliff and placid vineyards that weave a backset of astrayed affairs in a noirish mode with the trampy femme fatale and his willing romantic sap as the sacrificial lamb. the story is about the italian immigrant toni who is transported to french countryside to earn his honest living...and toni gets tangled up with two females, one is his virtuously generous landlady marie, the other is the lecherous josefa who literarily sleeps with every possible man she could seduce. futilely toni crazes for virtueless josefa but heartbroken by her infidelity so he ends up marrying marie but still carries a torch for josefa. eventually toni becomes the sucker utilized and doublecrossed by josefa and her ruthless cuckold. the social satire aspect is the whirling round of italian immigrants, after toni's ill-fated closure, there're yet another bunch of naive foreign immigrants departing from the train with their naive dreams in this desolate field. to be faithful to the consistancy of neo-realism, the music score of toni is accompanied completely by immediate guitar -playing by the background, and every character looks as crudely primitive as possible to create an atmosphere of wasteland, and contrarily this arrangement feels offbeatly poetic in an artlessly natrual way just like an endearing folk song with contagious affinity. See more Read all reviews

Toni

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