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Credits
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Summary
Whilst serving a stretch in prison, Émile and Louis become firm friends and plan
a break-out. Although Émile manages to escape, Louis is captured and must
serve out his term. When, years later, Louis leaves prison, he finds that Émile
is a wealthy businessman who has made his fortune selling phonographs. Remembering
their former friendship, Émile offers Louis a job in his factory and even helps
out in his lovelife. Their new found happiness is short-lived, however. One
day, some more of Émile's former fellow prison inmates appear, but it is not a
happy reunion they have in mind. Unless Émile makes rich men of them all,
they will expose him to the police...
Review
René Clair’s musical farce À nous la liberté was one of the
early triumphs of sound cinema and has retained its status as one of the all-time greats
of French cinema. The famous production line scenes were the inspiration for Chaplin’s
masterpiece, Modern Times and the film contains many equally memorable sequences
which doubtless influenced a generation of other film-makers.
The film's main theme is a serious one - man's increasing lack of freedom in an mechanised and regimented world - but it is tackled with Clair's characteristic charm and good humour. The dull repetitiveness of life on the factory production line echo the endless monotony of the Spartan prison scenes at the start of the film. No matter which path he treads, the working man is destined to end up in one form of prison or another. Yet, surprisingly, Clair's conclusion is a positive one: the machinery which currently shackles mankind to his bench will ultimately liberate him. When all the jobs are taken by machines, man will be released from the drudgery of work, able to enjoy life to the full, fishing and dancing. However, until then, only the humble tramp, freed from the bonds of family and work, can taste this vision of Utopia. Although the film has an overtly left-wing political sub-text, this is softened by some engaging and rumbustious comedy. The film may appear ‘experimental’ by today’s standards, but when one recalls that it derives from the early years of sound cinema, one is struck by Clair’s remarkable imagination and uncanny mastery over his medium. Clair himself instigated a re-release of the film in 1951. This version was more tightly edited and shortened by 15 minutes. © James Travers 2001
La liberté, c'est toute l'existence,
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