An Embarrassment of Riches

Film: La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on rockin’ flatscreen.

A large percentage of my readership here is fellow film bloggers of one stripe or another. When you write about the same general thing day in and day out, you get into a particular rhythm. So when you come across a film that leaves you wondering what to say about it, it comes as a bit of a shock. It happened to me a couple of days ago with Wong Fei Hung. In that case, I didn’t have much to say because I couldn’t follow the plot. In the case of La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game), it’s that I don’t know where to start.

In a lot of ways, it’s a good problem to have. La Regle du Jeu is an astonishingly deep and layered film and moves in multiple directions at once, each successfully and with astonishing nuance. This film is currently ranked fourth in the Sight and Sound poll of greatest films ever made. It started in tenth on the first list and spent most of the rest of the last century in second. Second-best film in history. It’s one thing to see that and consider it. It’s another thing to have the film play out and realize that its position is entirely justified and that second might be more appropriate than its current fourth. It’s surprising when one considers that this is a sort of farce and a play of manners of the pre-World War II French aristocracy.