Carnival of Flanders (1935) is something of a farcical sex-romp, except that the sex is only implied, as one might expect in a film made seventy years ago. The film was given the Best Foreign Film award by the New York Film Critics and is probably the best known work of a rather prolific director and scriptwriter, Jacques Feyder (1885-1948).

Historical Background: Jacques Feyder was born Jacques Frédérix in Belgium in 1885. Some quick thinking saved him from a career in the military, which had been his parents' hopes for him: he flunked the entrance exam for the military academy. After a couple of years working in a cannon foundry, he went to Paris in 1911 and began performing minor roles in stage plays and films. That experience soon led him to a career as a filmmaker. He gained an assignment as an assistant director shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He got his first shot at directing sooner than expected, in 1916, because the French nationals had been mobilized for war sooner than the Belgians, but shortly after his marriage in 1917, to actress Françoise Rosay, he was drafted into the Belgium army, where he acted in a troupe of players, entertaining the soldiers.

His career as a filmmaker was thus on hold until 1919. In 1921, he directed his first major success, L'Atlantide. Shot partly in the Sahara Desert, L'Atlantide was the most expensive French film that had been made up to that time. Feydor's reputation continued to grow throughout the twenties and thirties. His style influenced other French directors of that era and became known as "poetic realism." His film Crainquebille (1922) can be viewed as part of the transition from German expressionism to poetic realism. Feydor worked throughout Western Europe, making, for example, Visage d'Enfants in Switzerland in 1925 and Thérèse Raquin in Germany in 1928. The latter was based on a novel by Emile Zola.

One of Feydor's satirical films from 1928, Les Nouveaux Messieurs, was banned in France and Feydor decided, as a result, to accept an invitation to work in Hollywood for a while. He directed Greta Garbo's final silent film, The Kiss, in 1929. He wasn't happy working in Hollywood, however, and returned to France in 1931. He then undertook a series of three films all considered to be among his finest: Le Grand Jeu (1934), Pension Mimosas (1935), and La Kermesse héroïque (1935), known in English as Carnival in Flanders. The New York Film Critics bestowed their Best Foreign Film award on Carnival in Flanders and the film also took the Grand Prix du Cinema Français in 1936. Feydor also made a German version of the film, called Die Flugen Frauen ("The Clever Women"), in the same year. The only cast holdover between the two versions was Feydor's wife and the star of the film, Françoise Rosay. The German version won Feydor the Best Director award from the Venice Film Festival, resulting in the odd situation of two different versions of the same film both winning awards.

Carnival of Flanders was well received internationally and at film festivals but was also skewered by those most affected by its political implications. The Flemish people were outraged both because of the film's farcical treatment of Jan Breughel, a notable personage from the world of Flemish art, son of the more famous Pieter Breughel as well as brother of Pieter Breughel, the younger, all famous painters. Worse, some of the people of the Netherlands had collaborated, to an extent, with the Germans during World War I (and some would again collaborate during World War II). The collaboration of the women of Boom with the Spanish conquerors depicted in Carnival of Flanders was therefore unwelcome subject matter both before and after World War II. The film is so farcical in its handling of the topic, however, that one can hardly tell whether collaboration (as a means of saving a town from destruction) is being presented as clever and sensible or is being mocked as ridiculous. Even the Nazis couldn't figure it out. When the German version of the film opened in Berlin to an audience of Nazi luminaries, including Josef Goebbels, it was enthusiastically received, yet, later, Goebbels banned the film both in Germany and the occupied countries. Feydor and his wife, Rosay, moved to the South of France after the German occupation and later made their way to Switzerland. Feydor managed to wait out the war in Geneva, but Rosay spent much of the war years in England.

The Story: In the year 1616, the village of Boom in Flanders is in a tizzy when words arrives that a contingent of the Spanish army will be bivouacking there that evening. Other towns have been sacked and destroyed on such occasions and the slightest resistance will be met with vicious repercussions. The town's security detail immediately deserts, most of the men go into hiding, and the Mayor (André Alerme) decides to play dead. Only the Mayor's Wife (Françoise Rosay) seems prepared to tackle the problem head-on, despite the repeated assertions of the men that "these matters do not concern women." The Mayor's Wife organizes the women of the town to welcome the visitors with wine and a banquet and to cater to their every need. The Mayor's Wife will personally extend comforts to the Duke of Olivarès (Jean Murat), who heads the Spanish brigade.

A romantic subplot concerns the painter Jan Breughel, who lives in town and fancies the Mayor's Daughter, Siska (Micheline Cheirel). The Mayor wants to barter his daughter's hand, instead, to the Butcher (Alfred Adam), who will then agree to buy the Mayor's cattle each year. The Mayor, Chauvinist that he is, sees no need to consult his wife on such matters. She, however, favors the "true love" of Siska and Breughel. Can the resourceful Mayor's Wife save the town and turn the tide in favor of young Breughel, while massaging her husband's fragile male ego as well? You betcha!

Themes: I am as ambivalent about this film's "message" as were the Nazis. I think that the film works only in so far as it's viewed as pure battle-of-the-sexes farce. If one tries to uncover a political message in the film, it's very hard to know what that message is or to settle on one that decent people would want to condone. The Flemish men are presented as both Chauvinist pigs and inept cowards, yet it's also obvious that resistance on their part would have been (as the Borg of Star Trek like to say) futile. The Spaniards are presented as a good deal manlier and, therefore, more appealing to the women of the town, but one really doesn't want to encourage the idea that women should admire men for their violent propensities. The women are presented as clever and capable, mainly because they cuckold their craven husbands and willingly surrender their virtue to the more virile men from the south. I don't see anything in that set of ideas that I personally want to applaud, but, as a naughty farce, the movie is good for a few laughs.

Production Values: The script is full of farcical gags and ribald merrymaking, some amusing and entertaining, but none of it really roll-on-the-floor funny. There's plenty of saucy little twists, most of which are designed to favor the women over the men. The Flemish men in this film are pretty much pompous buffoons, so they're mainly getting what they deserve. At the end, after the Spaniards have marched out of town, the Mayor's Wife reads a proclamation from a balcony, announcing that the Duke has declared that the town's hospitality will be rewarded by a one-year exemption on the town's tax. She then cleverly attributes this great boon to the heroism of her husband, the Mayor, and he, quite naturally, is more than willing to accept the credit. As he bows to the cheers of the townspeople, he notices that his wife is wearing a new necklace of priceless pearls and comments that he hasn't ever seen them before. She says that they were the Duke's wedding gift for Siska. Obviously, were that the case, Siska would be wearing them instead. The Mayor's Wife had agreed to sleep with the Duke in exchange for his ordering Siska's marriage to Breughel, so the pearls are the Duke's gift to the Mayor's Wife for their night together. Not only has the dunderhead Mayor been cuckolded, his wife is also able to flaunt her trophy necklace publicly and even get her husband to naively exclaim, "The Duke certainly does what he does well!"

There's a cute bit of gay-positive business in one scene. As the Spanish troops are gathering for the festivities, one soldier prefers to stay behind with his needlework and shows a lack of interest in the seductive efforts of the maid assigned to draw his bath. He complains that his bath water smells like fish and delicately scents it with perfume. Later, one of the Flemish men comes by and expresses interest in his needlework, because he also knits. The Spaniard invites him to fetch his own yarn and needles and join him. The scene is handled with the same light farcical touch as the heterosexual imbroglios. For a film made in 1935, a positive portrayal of men with apparently "sensitive" inclinations and heterosexual disinterest was really quite daring.

The most worthwhile aspect of this film (the only significantly worthwhile aspect, in my opinion) is the outstanding sets (the work of Lazare Meerson) and costumes (by J.K. Benda). Using the paintings of the Breughels for guidance, the design team reproduced the 17th-century Flanders in minute detail. These design elements of the production are quite superlative.

Françoise Rosay was born Françoise Bandy de Nalèche in 1891 and died in 1974. She has a commanding presence as an actress, not gorgeous but also not one you can look past. She started out in opera and then progressed to theater. She temporarily retired from theater after her marriage to Feydor to devote herself to the screen. She appeared in over one hundred films during a sixty-year career (1913-1974) in France, Britain, America, Italy, and Germany! Late in life, she wrote a volume of her memoirs. She has an uncanny knack for withholding expressiveness at certain moments when one would expect it, which then becomes a kind of expressiveness in and of itself. Micheline Cheirel, who played Siska, later appeared in Cornered (1945). All of the supporting cast members were effective as well.

Bottom-Line: This is a so-so film, with great sets, strong performances, and a witty and bawdy script, but thematically ambiguous at best and not really funny enough to rise above average entertainment. I recommend it mainly for those wanting a deeper understanding of the French school of filmmaking called "poetic realism." Feydor was one of the chief architects of the movement and this is arguably his top film. Carnival in Flanders is in French with English subtitles and has a running time of just 90 minutes. One annoyance is that the subtitle translations are quite sparse. Sometimes multiple lines of dialog transpire without corresponding subtitles. It's typically small talk, the exact nature of which is probably unimportant to the plot, but one nevertheless feels a bit left out.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older