The affliction which plagues one mild-mannered train driver with bouts of rage might as well be a blood curse in La Bete Humaine, and fate does not look kindly on those who tempt the beast, as Jean Renoir delicately lays out the blueprint of corrupted antiheroes and femme fatales in his tragic fable of man’s inner madness.
Alexander Nevsky may not possess the formal innovation of Sergei Eisenstein’s avant-garde silent films, yet this venture into sound cinema unfolds a historic clash of medieval armies with incredible finesse, celebrating a Russian folk hero whose tale resonates across eras and cultures.
The eccentric, madcap energy of Bringing Up Baby isn’t atypical of 1930s screwball comedies, but Howard Hawks reaches near-perfection in his orchestration of sexual innuendos, animalistic subtext, and an amusingly tense dynamic between polar opposites finding an unlikely romance as reluctant caretakers of a leopard.
