Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

dlee2012 Sacha Guitry's last film is a montage of scenes from French history. The actor/director plays a sage figure who seeks to bring history to life for five disillusioned school students who come to his door.Throughout the film, history is presented as a pageant of events. The bright early colour cinematography reflects the brightness of a parade.The scenes often take on a theme and there are effortless segues of, for instance, various groups marching down a street throughout history. In this way, Guitry emphasises how the same events repeat themselves with only slight variations.Song and dance bring additional colour to this pageant. Guitry seeks to bring drama to history at a time when it was still largely taught as rote learning of dates or as an expression of jingoism.A lot of the comedy will be lost on English speaking audiences though there are enough visual jokes that translate well across cultures. The humour helps to undermine the nationalism mentioned above that so plagued the teaching of history until the recent past. It also makes a mockery of some of the more absurd or arrogant rulers from French history.In terms of truly heroic figures, though, it is Voltaire who shines as the great hero, fitting as he was a reformer and man of letters, not one of the kings or military men who did so much to damage their own country over France's long history.As Guitry's swansong, this film firmly cements his own place in his nation's artistic history. It is a simple film but its use of pageantry, spectacle and non-linear story telling make it stand out as a worthy vehicle for relaying the history of France as the nation assessed its future after the traumas of the two World Wars and the recent shameful events in Indo-China and Algeria. France was to change radically throughout the 1960s and 1970s with the student riots of 1968 and the fall of de Gaulle, so perhaps this film offered its audience a moment of reflection before the decisive move forward into a very different tomorrow.

richard-1787 Is this a great movie as movie historians speak of great movies, another Les règles du jeu? No. Is it enjoyable to watch - and watch again? Yes, very much so. As the other reviewer says, it is a very impressionistic presentation of many of the memorable moments in Paris history, often done quite quickly. Some of the dialog is wonderful. (It's no surprise that the Parisian Guitry most admires is Voltaire, whom he presents as the creator of French esprit.) My copy doesn't have English subtitles, and I don't know if such a version exists. They would have to be very good indeed to capture the wit of the original French.What anyone can enjoy, however, without understanding a word of what is said, is the incredible series of remarkably beautiful women. It is as if Guitry convinced every beautiful actress in France to do a cameo in this movie. And there is not a dumb one in the group. They all deliver their lines with éclat.Often, I suspect, if you don't know something about French history, there won't be enough in this movie to explain some of the incidents to you. It was clearly made for a French audience who would know who all these people were without requiring detailed explanations.A nice way to spend 2 hours.

dbdumonteil Sacha Guitry died in 1957 and he did not know whether he would finish his movie...He wanted Henri-Georges Clouzot to replace him should he disappear before his work was over.It was not to be fortunately .It's Guitry's legacy,and it's a delight.Try to see the two movies ("Si Versailles m'était conté and "Si Paris" ) one after the other.They are both witty films ,full of humor -this humor which the Nouvelle Vague did not know- of puns,of anachronisms,of likely stories and historical games.Guitry's plan was to tell the tale of Paris.Five students come to his house and tell the writer/director history they are taught in their schools is a big bore .As if they were listening to Sheherazade they begin to listen...and we do too...Unlike so many historical epics,Guitry's work is not linear ,going back and forth between past and present,mixing true historic lines (trial of Marie-Antoinette for instance) and scenes of his own devising (Voltaire's armchair ) It's important to notice the presence of old people and of death in a movie which is a comedy: Guitry insists on the dying Voltaire, and on the centenarians (Fontenelle and the "Cocotte" (= courtezan)).In "Si Versailles..." the best sequences were those where King Louis XIV was getting old .Guitry himself was seriously ill at the time.Guitry's art is often dazzling:he mixes music,songs (though thepart played by Gerard Philipp is rather bland),dance,mime (and Louis de Funès's talent burgeoning),paintings (Winterhalter's famous "Empress Eugenie and her ladies-in-waiting" suddenly becomes a lively sequence where those women complain about crinoline dresses)...Many scenes take place in the Bastille ,and deal with its prisoners and the famous Lettres de Cachet which allowed the king to imprison whoever he wanted .Much to the Parisians' surprise after the storming of the prison,there were only seven prisoners then,including two madmen.Guitry's takes clichés we used to find in old history books (and even still find today)and pushes them to absolute absurdity.Most of the time,it is brilliant: Henri the Fourth had a double (in case of assassination,cause his predecessor Henri the Third was murdered by a monk).When the king (the real king) is killed by Ravaillac,the "stuntman" runs to his mom and shouts :"At last!" Mother gives a sigh of relief "the nightmare's over!"