Criterion Collection: La Ronde [DVD] [1950] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

A chocolate confection of a movie.

Set in Vienna circa 1900, based on a play by Viennese playwrite Arthur Schnitzler, it's a series of vignettes more about lust than love. The vignettes flow together by having one person appearing the the next -- generally being the seducer in one, the victim in the other.

As I understand it, Ophuls moderated the promiscuous tone of Schnitzler's play. There is definitely a sense of regret and loss over these random flings despite their inevitableness.

Still, the tone is somewhat light, at times almost flighty. There's a master of ceremonies (Anton Walbrook) holding the entire thing together, as well as a pretty melody by Oscar Stauss. There are even the daring intrusions of moviemaking -- a clapboard, a filmstrip with the sex scene being cut out -- and, one time, a hugely amusing bit of symbolism with the merry-go-round.

As with LE PLAISIR, many fine French actors appear. Sometimes, the same ones. Danielle Darrieux at her most beautiful. Simone Simon. Daniel Gélin. Jean-Louie Barrault (a little over-the-top). Simone Signoret. Gérard Philipe (a beautifully nuanced performance).

Similar to LE PLAISIR (Region 1) -- but different. And about equal in quality and enjoyment.

The Criterion DVD extras include a film commentary, an informative presentation by writer Allan Williams, and informative interviews with Daniel Gélin (1989) and son of Max, Marcel Ophuls (2008).

This is a film that's perfectly constructed, immaculately acted and brilliantly directed. While it retains the structure and much of the dialogue from Schnitzler's original play, it replaces its moralising tone (it was originally a kind of morality play, preaching against the spread of the destructive little spirochete, syphilis) with French joie de vivre in all the delights of love - or rather sex, since love makes only an occasional appearance.

The concept is simple. We are taken on a round of sexual liaisons that incidentally works its way up the class ladder at the same time (with a slight detour through the Grisette, the Poet and the Actress). The circle is closed off by the drunken encounter between the Count and the prostitute, taking us back to the character who started the whole dance off.

The actors are the cream of the French profession at the time - which is saying something. The likes of Gerard Philipe, Simone Signoret, Danielle Darrieux and Jean-Louis Barrault, all give pitch-perfect performances, making the succession of duets a truly ensemble piece. Towering above them all, though, is Anton Walbrook as our Master-of-Ceremonies and puppet-master. His style of acting - naturalistic, laid-back but totally subsumed in the character he's playing - actually feels very modern.

But, despite this starry list of performers, this is very much Max Ophuls' film. His wonderfully fluid camera-work carries us trippingly through the Vienna of 1900. It makes an interesting comparison with the almost exactly contemporaneous Third Man, where Carol Reed's stark, angled, expressionist camera reveals a very different Vienna of half a century later. Ophuls' single-take 5-minute opening shot is a tour-de-force to set beside the opening shots of Touch of Evil and The Player. It takes in special fog effects: it incorporates changes of setting from miniature theatre to film set to rooftop views to a Viennese square: it moves from the present to the past, from Spring sunlight to a balmy night: there are changes of wardrobe: there's dialogue throughout, singing in synch with an orchestral backing and perfectly cued action as the roundabout begins to turn and brings us the seamless introduction of the first of our characters. That roundabout - merry-go-round might be a better word in the context of the film - almost becomes a character in its own right, even suffering an embarrassing breakdown at the crucial moment of the meeting between the Young Man and the Married Woman. The way that Walbrook's master-of-ceremonies slips in and out of the action is perfectly managed. So, too, his more objective role as Brechtian observer of all this with delightfully knowing touches like the use of clapper-board to introduce the next scene.

And through all of it is Oscar Straus's unforgettable waltz, tying it all together and swirling us through this wonderful, hedonistic, fin-de-siecle dance. An unmissable movie, fully deserving of its BAFTA best film award at the time. The DVD also includes some excellent extra material, including a fascinating interview with Daniel Gelin on working with Ophuls.

"What is still missing for love to start its rounds? A waltz...and here it is. The waltz turns. The carousel turns...and the merry-go-round of love can begin turning, too."

If Le Plaisir is a clever study in how pleasure can lead to despair, hopelessness and, fortunately, more pleasure, and if Madame D... is a masterpiece of love's elegant sadness, perhaps La Ronde can be seen as a carousel of pleasure, where men and women's most natural instinct is celebrated with joy and infidelity.

Max Ophuls' La Ronde is a wonderful mixture of anticipation, pleasure and rue. It might even make you think wisdom could be involved. We're now in Vienna in 1900, a world of waltz, where lovers change lovers until we come back full circle. This delightful waltz includes counts, maids, actresses, soldiers, poets, prostitutes and married couples. Thanks to our host and escort, played by Anton Walbrook, we are not simply observers. We're complicit. "I am you," he tells us, "the personification of your desire to know everything."

On this carousel of pleasure, amusingly disguised for some as love, we can savor both the situations and the actors that Max Ophuls has given us. Ophuls is the master chef, but it is the likes of Danielle Darrieux, Jean-Louis Barrault, Simone Simon, Simone Signoret, Gerard Philipe and all the rest who keep this soufflé from falling. And speaking of falling, one of the most amusing and endearing episodes is our host encountering a momentary breakdown of the carousel, then fixing it in time for Daniel Gelin to continue with his waltz in the arms of Madame Breitkopf (Darrieux).

"True love is possible only where there is truth and purity" says Madame Breitkopf's husband to her in bed one evening, a few hours after her meeting with the young man played by Gelin. The next evening he'll meet the young girl he will make his mistress. Thank goodness truth and purity have little to do with pleasure, which needs only desire, a bit of self-delusion and a willingness not to learn from experience,

It's difficult to watch Madame D... without wanting to weep. It's difficult to watch La Ronde without wanting to smile. This is a movie to take delight in just as it is, without too much earnest analysis. Not the least of its charms is the recurring waltz, "Der Reigen" by Oscar Straus, which our lovers dance to in each other's arms.