getting it all by giving in
by Douglas Messerli
Jacques Feyder, Robert A. Stemmle, and Bernard Zimmer
(screenplay, based on a story by Charles Spaak), Jacques Feyder (director) La Kermesse héroïque (Carnival in Flanders) / 1935
It may be hard to imagine a proto-feminist film directed by
a man coming out of France in 1935, but that’s very much what Jacques Feyder’s Carnival in Flanders is.
Ready to celebrate their annual carnival,
the Flemish town of Boom is busily preparing decorations in the square, while
the small city’s Burgomaster and his associates pose for a painting by the
local artist, Julien Breughel (Bernard
Lancret), who is in love with the Burgomaster’s daughter Siska
(Micheline Cheirel); at the very moment that Breughel asks for Siska’s hand in
marriage, however, her father (Jean Murat) is completing a deal with the
butcher (Alfred Adam) to marry her in return for regularly purchasing his
livestock—an agreement which his strong-willed wife, Cornelia (Françoise Rosay, director Feyder's own wife)
finds to be obscene.
Ready to celebrate their annual carnival, the Flemish town of Boom is
busily preparing decorations in the square, while the small city’s Burgomaster
and his associates pose for a painting by the local artist, Julien Breughel
(Bernard Lancret), who is in love with
the Burgomaster’s daughter Siska (Micheline Cheirel); at the very moment that
Breughel asks for Siska’s hand in marriage, however, her father (Jean Murat) is
completing a deal with the butcher (Alfred Adam) to marry her in return for
regularly purchasing his livestock—an agreement which his strong-willed wife,
Cornelia (Françoise Rosay) finds to be obscene.
In the midst of these events, two
emissaries of King Phillip II suddenly charge into town announcing, via a
letter, that the next day The Duke d’Olivarès (Jean Murat) will be camping
there for the night with his soldiers. Recalling the Spanish pillage and rape
of citizens in Antwerp, the town leaders are horrified, and determine to hide
out during the visit, the Burgomaster himself determining to play dead.
Perceiving that the men of Boom will do nothing to protect them, the
women, headed by the Burgomaster’s wife, declare their own war, wherein they
plan to readily woo the rowdy visitors with wine, food, and sex.
The Spanish arrive, and to their delight the beautiful women, dressed in
their best gowns, gladly give of themselves and their larders, while their men
hide and cower. Some of the women, especially the mistress of the local inn,
give of themselves so willingly that their behavior reminded some viewers of collaboration
rather than accommodation. The innkeeper’s wife offers the men her skills at
mending, each time quickly finding the needle to be replaced by a shuttlecock
or beam.
In one case, a Spanish Lieutenant, after complaining that the bathing water
smells of fish, pouring a bottle of perfume in it, and sending the attending
body scrubber off, apparently even finds a willing homosexual encounter with a
local male, the two of them sharing their skills of knitting and needlework, Feyder’s
camera discretely moving off before their discussion might turn to a display of
more intricate stitches and joints.
Others, like Madame la Bourgmestre, entertain with such wit and
resourcefulness, that she wins over the Duke and even gets the corrupt priest
(who boasts, in a kind of dark comic moment, he has been an interrogator of the
Inquisition at Toledo) to marry Siska to Breughel. So pleased is the Duke with
the villagers that, as he leaves, he grants the entire city a year without
taxes, which the Burgomaster’s wife immediately attributes to be the work of
her husband.
Alright, these
early feminists used the sleights of their sex to get what they wanted, but
they have, nonetheless, shown their power and control over their menfolk. In
this somewhat inverted Lysistrata,
the women not only take control but get awarded through the love of far more
virile Spanish men for their actions.
Feyder was vilified by many for his themes; and, two decades later,
Truffaut singled the film out in a broadside against several French classics:
“In this regard, the most hateful film is unarguably La Kermesse héroïque because everything in it is incomplete, its
boldness is attenuated; it is reasonable, measured, its doors are half-open,
the paths are sketched and only sketched; everything in it is pleasant and
perfect.” One must remember that only a year after this French-German sponsored
production, the Nazis were in Paris, and collaboration would become a real
issue. Both the film’s director, Feyder, and its lead, Rosay fled to
Switzerland.
But watching it
yesterday, I truly enjoyed its lusty implications, and applauded the women of
Boom for their abilities to save their otherwise exemplary lives by simply
using the ploys of their gender. Moreover, in its reliance on the tradition of
Dutch painting, this gentle comedy tells us more about life in 17th century
Flanders than reading many an historical tract. Surely it was a patriarchal,
bourgeois society, but in Feyder’s joyful rendition it was allowed to enjoy
itself if only for a night.
Los Angeles,
December 30, 2016
Reprinted from World
Cinema Review (December 2016).
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