Adapted from Arthur Schnlitzers fin de siècle play Reign and set in Vienna, Max Ophuls La ronde connects by character a series of stories featuring a solid spectrum of society that runs from prostitute to count and everyone in between saying one thing and doing another. Hypocrisy after all is a lynch pin of society.
Seduction and deception run rampant through each segment, some with romantically tragic consequence but done with mild malice as Ophuls whimsically with his signature tracking moves us through elegant set design with a sumptuously costumed cast featuring an active narrator (Anton Walbrook) injecting himself into each segment with wry action.
Ophuls opens with Walbrook in an uncut 7 minute prologue then seamlessly weaves his story from one situation to the next as one character from the previous changes course with another who follows suit into the next.
Smoothly and elegantly constructed by Ophuls mastery of film language, he gets wonderful performances from nearly a dozen lead characters (especially the ladies) in various states of desire and deception. A subtly scandalous and amoral piece of story telling (must have given the censors headaches) with adults behaving like adults as they go round and round in this circle game.
Seduction and deception run rampant through each segment, some with romantically tragic consequence but done with mild malice as Ophuls whimsically with his signature tracking moves us through elegant set design with a sumptuously costumed cast featuring an active narrator (Anton Walbrook) injecting himself into each segment with wry action.
Ophuls opens with Walbrook in an uncut 7 minute prologue then seamlessly weaves his story from one situation to the next as one character from the previous changes course with another who follows suit into the next.
Smoothly and elegantly constructed by Ophuls mastery of film language, he gets wonderful performances from nearly a dozen lead characters (especially the ladies) in various states of desire and deception. A subtly scandalous and amoral piece of story telling (must have given the censors headaches) with adults behaving like adults as they go round and round in this circle game.
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