The Golden Coach Reviews

Since this movie seemed to have a really solid reputation (it is included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list among other things), I thought I might as well check it out. There are apparently 3 versions of this movie (in French, in Italian and in English) but Jean Renoir apparently preferred the English version and, fortunately, it was the version that I saw. Well, it was definitely something completely different than the other movies directed by Renoir that I have seen so far and, above all, it was visually pretty neat (the restored version I saw on YouTube was pristine but it’s too bad there were some commercials every 5 mins). Still, to be honest, I actually had a hard time to care about the damned thing. I mean, what was actually the point of this movie? Apparently, it was supposed to be some kind of homage to the Commedia dell'arte, an early form of theatre originating in Italy, but beside this information, I have to admit that I didn’t know much about this Art form. At least, there is no doubt that Anna Magnani was super charismatic. I wonder if I ever saw her in another movie before but she was really the best thing in this movie. I really did appreciate the fact that even though she was attractive, she wasn’t your classic movie star, there was something really relatable about her which made her quite fascinating to behold. Still, did I really care about her character? Not really and the other characters were even less interesting, even if I have to admit that the Viceroy did have a couple of cool lines. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Jean Renoir’s work.