Avis des critiques

The great rediscovery of the Criterion set is "David Golder," a controversial but not unsympathetic portrait of a ruthless immigrant Jewish financier (Baur). More an attack on French hypocrisy than an exercise in anti-Semitism, the movie is fluid, lyrical and inventive — as remarkable a sound debut as its source was for a first novel. Duvivier orchestrates an accomplished synthesis of Germanic lighting and Soviet montage.

This simultaneously objective and empathetic eye is reflected in the delicate demeanor of Duvivier's compositions, which shift, often in a single camera move, from long shots of characters casually conversing in richly ornamented interiors to close-ups mapping the psychological dimensions of their frayed relationships. If Baur's title character must meet an inevitable fate, it's not without a redemptive plea, rendering Golder less a monster than a martyr for a family he never truly knew.

The characterizations are overly broad – Golders' wife and daughter are little more than screeching harpies – but Golder's loneliness is conveyed with desolate finality.

Based on the best-selling 1929 debut novel by the Russian-born, French-educated Jewish writer Irène Némirovsky, David Golder, every frame of which seems to be imbued with the desperate spirit of France's economically difficult and politically chaotic interwar years, is the captivating and cynical tale of a mean-spirited banker undone by his greedy estranged wife and selfish teenage daughter.