Wetterleuchten (1943)

Wetterleuchten: Directed by Jean Grémillon. With Madeleine Renaud, Pierre Brasseur, Madeleine Robinson, Paul Bernard. A shimmering glass hotel at the top of a remote Provençal mountain provides the setting for a tragicomic tapestry about an obsessive love pentangle, whose principals range from an artist to a hotel manager to a dam worker. Scripted by Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche, the film was banned from theaters for the duration of the occupation for its dark portrayal of the hedonistic excesses of the ruling class. Today, it is often singled out as Jean Grémillon’s greatest achievement.

“A shimmering glass hotel at the top of a remote Provençal mountain provides the setting for a tragicomic tapestry about an obsessive love pentangle, whose principals range from an artist to a hotel manager to a dam worker. Scripted by Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche, the film was banned from theaters for the duration of the occupation for its dark portrayal of the hedonistic excesses of the ruling class.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat I love about this film is how it captures the French obsession with class. Karl Marx was German, but you never hear about class distinctions in Germany. Marxu0026#39;s ideas carried over to Russia (in a perverted form), but class there was more striking, peasants against everyone else. It was the French who made it an art form. The word u0026quot;bourgeoisu0026quot; is French for a reason, because no other country has the distinction they do.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHere we see what happens if class — and the competitive nature between classes — is a part of a romantic triangle (or, as the description says, a pentangle). This makes for some interesting dynamics and political commentary. And all while France was in the middle of a much more serious conflict.”