“Renoir achieves all that one could want of cinema, where the mystery of things and of beings becomes perceptible simply by a faithful transcription of reality.”-Vincent Vatrican, Cahiers du cinéma Shot in Provence as a production of Marcel Pagnol’s studio in Marseille, Toni is one of Renoir’s most important films. Using only real backgrounds and mostly non-professional actors, among whom the crew lived for a period of time, it is considered by many (including Renoir) to be a forerunner of neorealism. The story concerns an immigrant Spanish farmworker, Toni, and his relations with two women, one who loves him, one whom he loves. Made in 1934 on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, Toni captures the spirit of fraternity and fatalism with which Renoir viewed the working classes of the thirties. François Truffaut noted, “Renoir likes to point out that Toni…is the first neorealist film. In fact, what is striking about Toni is its dreamlike quality, the fantasy-like atmosphere surrounding a rather ordinary drama. Toni is…a tragedy in which the sun takes the place of fate.” —BAM/PFA
The son of the painter Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir became one of France’s most important and respected filmmakers during the middle of the 20th century. A Philosophy and Math student, Renoir became a cavalryman, but was invalided out of the army before World War I. Later, he married a model and aspiring actress, and, following the death of his father and the acquisition of an inheritance, set up his own production company to produce movies for his wife. Renoir learned from these early experiences of financing movies and watching other films, and became a director in 1924. With the advent of sound, Renoir’s career was quickly made with a series of profitable films, including La Chienne (1931), a savage and dark drama about a man’s self-destruction, which was later remade by Fritz Lang as Scarlet Street. Renoir’s subsequent films, including The Lower Depths (1936) and Grand Illusion (1937), were among the finest made in France before the war, and were well acknowledged at the time of… read more
One of Renoir's darkest but most interesting films. Because Renoir keeps such humanistic ideals in his work, it is easy to forget that he does not shy away from the dark side of humanity, a la his inspiration Erich von Stroheim. In Toni the earthiness of the peasantry and the immigrants are bookends to the human aspect of the tale, Toni's sexual obsession with Josefa, which ultimately leads to his downfall.
In the end, Toni's life becomes futile, as the next wave of immigrants comes in on the train after Toni's death, because life goes on regardless of our sacrifices.
Shifting away from the content of the film, Toni is probably the most "neo-realistic" film made until Rossellini's Paisan, because Renoir dispenses entirely with dramatic climaxes and instead films dead space.
What a surprise from this little known Renoir film! You can almost smell the sea and the grass. Dynamic like a Brassens song, and sweet like a country poem. 5/5
****1/2. Shot on location near Marseilles, TONI is not a melodrama although all the ingredients are there. The film is rather of the realistic genre with Nature as witness. TONI isn’t a romantic movie either, Renoir being more interested in little details than in the usual love scenes. Other scenes involving the workers announce the following Renoir films of his leftist period. I may sound a little negative but I’m not : TONI is definitely a great film because we feel Renoir’s love for all his characters. Highly recommended. A DVD zone your library’s left corner.
"An extra folded into Film Forum's all-35mm, month-long celebration of The Newspaper Picture (April 9 through May 6) celebrates the brashest
