À Nous la Liberté (1931) User Reviews

Very, very good for 1931

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 5 January 2008]

In 1931, many of the films made in France were still silents and the industry was several years behind Hollywood. In this context, it's incredible that such a creative and unusual film was released. While it is far from perfect, it's got a lot going for it and is a nice bit of social commentary.

The film begins with two prisoners trying to escape from their dull and overly regimented existence in prison. One actually does escape--the other is stuck behind but eventually escapes as well. The first guy goes from escaped prisoner to owner of a huge company producing record players--a real self--made millionaire. The problem is, his factory is run almost exactly like the assembly line from prison shown at the beginning of the film. When the second guy escapes, he is hired by this company and adapts very poorly to this mechanized regimen. There's MUCH more to it than this, but since other reviewers have discussed the film at length, I'll stop in explaining the plot.

Interestingly enough, a very similar film came out a few years later from Charlie Chaplin (MODERN TIMES) and the parallels are definitely there. However, director Clair didn't feel offended by this, but the production company instituted a lawsuit against Chaplin. The problem is that imitation IS legal--heck, you can even use the exact same title as another film if you'd really like. PLUS, I noticed that Clair actually borrowed very heavily from Chaplin!! The sympathetic second prisoner is so much like Chaplin's Little Tramp and the parallels here are also quite obvious! The way he walks, the double-takes, the klutziness, the sweetness and his inability in the end to get the girl--all very Chaplin-like--and apparently inspired by THE CIRCUS and several other Chaplin films.

I think this controversy is a lousy thing because it obscures the fact that BOTH are excellent films--though I'd definitely give the nod to MODERN TIMES. While derivative, he was able to do so much more with the material--with amazing sight gags that were missing from Clair's film--which was not nearly as funny.

By the way, had this film been made just a few years later, it would have gotten a much lower score. But, compared to the films being made in 1931, it is quite the movie.

Charming early French comedy, with a fine score

[LCShackley · 8/10 · 10 July 2007]

Rene Clair's first film was the bizarre surrealist short ENTR'ACTE, which had music (and a cameo) by composer Erik Satie. Also showing up briefly in that film were two of Satie's young protégés, Darius Milhaud and George Auric.

When Clair made the talkie A NOUS LA LIBERTE, he hired Auric to do a completely original score, which was not common at the time, and a lot of the scenes were shot to recordings of the Auric music. This was only Auric's 2nd film (after Cocteau's BLOOD OF A POET) but he already shows the mastery that would lead to well over a hundred further scores.

Clair and his Oscar-nominated designer fill the screen with wonderful art deco visuals, and there's a sympathetic cast cemented by the two central characters, Louis and Emile. There are some wonderful physical comedy bits in the film (mostly in the factory), as well as the social satire which I didn't find particularly heavy-handed (although that adjective has been used by others). The fine balance of music, visuals, and comedy makes this a winner.

The satire may be dated and gauche, but the film still takes off when it focuses on physical comedy and visual cinema.(possible spoiler in last paragraph)

[the red duchess · 7/10 · 21 December 2000]

I saw this on a double-bill with Clair's silent classic 'Paris Qui Dort', and was initially dismayed that the feathery magic of that film was replaced by clunking ironies, heavy compositions, and shrill, caterwauling 'music'. 'A Nous la liberte' is in many ways a forerunner to 'Modern Times', with about as much political subtlety - the factory assembly line disrupted by an inept worker would be 'borrowed' by Chaplin, although, instructively, the sequence is much funnier in the Hollywood film, perhaps because the little tramp is such a recognised, beloved figure, and the rather non-descript Louis is not; or perhaps because Chaplin was such a master at pantomime, and enlivened the mechanical scene with a vibrant display of physical virtuosity; more probably, it is because Chaplin developed the scene, showing not only the effect of human error on the most perfect of technological systems, but also the dehumanising, mechanistic effect of emergent modern capitalism on its workers.

Clair sees life for the worker under capitalism as identical with the life of a convict in prison - both systems seek to stamp out or rigidly order humanity, turn people into socially acceptable machines. With humanity so thoroughly contained, it is not surprising that it should be a fundamental human emotion - love - that causes anarchic chaos in this system.

Clair also links capitalism with criminality - the Big Boss in the film, the man who engenders the new technocratic society, who unites workers and the wealthy, past (his own, his friend, his blackmailers), present and future (the new machines), is an escaped convict. Despite the rigid heaviness of the buildings and machines, and the system they uphold, the status quo is ultimately transitory and fragile. It's easy to climb the social ladder, but just as easy to fall, as Emile shows with remarkably good grace. No such system - and capitalism claims to be natural - can ever offer stability or genuine security for the exploiters who need it most: capitalism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Clair is also canny or prescient in linking the new capitalism with emerging fascism throughout Europe - Emile's factory is ordered on crypto-military lines, with uniforms, symbols and leader's iconography.

If Clair's politics are heavy-handed, his visual sensibility is not, and this film transcends itself when it looses its political shackles and gives into subversive whimsy, a rondelay of chases, fist-fights, drunken fracas, Bunuellian iconoclasm. Clair may not have been as profound a director as Renoir or Vigo, but neither had his eye, or his way with orchestrating movement, of creating chaos from order, and vice versa. The climactic surreal opening ceremony is obvious politically, but a visual stunner, with even nature undermining the narcissistic parades of power, in a way that anticipates Fellini and Kusturica.

The spare, oppressive sets are a delight, from the 'Metropolis'-like factory, to the unwitting mirror-home of the Big Boss. The end, in its rueful freedom, is pure Renoir. The inspired and inventive use of sound doesn't obscure the fact that much of this movie is beautifully filmed silent cinema.

Slapstick Gallic Satire Skewers Industrialism and Corporate Greed Between the World Wars

[EUyeshima · 9/10 · 24 July 2007]

This early talkie is an unexpected joy to watch and an artful piece of transitional cinema. It's difficult to believe that Charlie Chaplin claimed he never saw René Clair's fanciful 1931 musical comedy since it predates many of the same leitmotifs that came up in "Modern Times" five years later, including pointed jabs at corporate greed interlaced with Keystone Cops-style slapstick. In fact, Clair seems completely inspired by Chaplin in the way he carefully orchestrates the chase scenes and the robotic assembly line in this film, so much so that Chaplin borrowed back the visual cues in "Modern Times".

Clair sets up his story as an elaborate parable centered on two convicts, best friends Émile and Louis, who make toy horses in the prison assembly line. In a long-planned attempt to escape, Émile escapes thanks to a generous leg-up from Louis, who is caught and returned back to their cell. Years pass, and Émile becomes a successful industrialist in charge of a phonograph manufacturing business. Meanwhile, Louis serves out his term and upon release, ironically finds himself working in the assembly line of Émile's factory. After some hesitation, Louis and Émile reunite and join forces with a rapid-fire series of chaotic complications leading the two friends to realize that a life away from work may be their true fate.

The film master does not belabor his sociopolitical statements about materialism, but it is intriguing in hindsight to appreciate the film's prescience in showing France disconnected from the encroaching Nazi menace. Moreover, the film boasts startling visual elements thanks to Lazare Meerson's unmistakably Expressionist art direction. Henri Marchand and Raymond Cordy make a fine comedy team as Émile and Louis, though what really shines is the timeless spirit that Clair imbues this film. The 2002 Criterion Collection DVD includes two deleted scenes, a brief 1998 interview with Clair's widow, and a twenty-minute short, "Entr'acte", that Clair made with French artists Francis Picabia and Erik Satie. Speaking of Chaplin, in an audio essay, film historian David Robinson describes the plagiarism suit that the film's producers brought against Charlie Chaplin when "Modern Times" was released.

Classic French masterpiece.

[uds3 · 4 November 2003]

Sobering indeed that this innovative and quite unique early French "talkie" has garnered but four reviews. This is akin to the Cistine Chapel going six months without visitors!

As any student of early film would have discovered, the premise of "A Nous La Liberte" was undoubtedly "lifted" and used by Chaplin in his revered MODERN TIMES. Others have mentioned this aspect.

The film is a satirical comment, almost a control experiment from one viewpoint, focusing on the ideology of big business, and in regard particularly to newly gestated industrial technology, just how the individual is viewed as little more than a means to an end. A resource to be used and no more. Clair poses the question, is the worker..the LITTLE man - any more or less a free-thinking and needful entity than the embittered prisoner serving out his time?

The film follows the fortunes of two ex-cons. One makes it to the top of the industrialised ant-hill, the other makes it to the nearest sheltered alleyway or park bench. Whilst Clair experiments freely here with music and song, the Metropolis-like buildings lend a sombre note to the proceedings at hand.

Stylistically dated perhaps now, and the humor betrays its thirties origins, nevertheless at its core the observations made still hold true. This remains a critically important cinematic benchmark not just in terms of early French cinema but also in terms of a director's extraordinary vision so many years ago.

Freedom for ever.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 21 September 2008]

Emile and Louis are two jailed friends who dream of freedom and plan to escape. Louis is successful and becomes a phonograph factory tycoon, after Emile finally breaks out he seeks work at Louis' factory. Tho initially the harshness of industrialisation keeps them poles apart, they both come to realise that friendship and being honest to oneself is far more rewarding than love or any sort of financial gain.

À nous la liberté {orginaly titled Liberté chérie} is a truly biting musical satire written and directed by the considerably talented René Clair. Filmed without a script, with Clair giving his actors free licence to improvise, the picture focuses on the dehumanisation of workers at an industrial plant. Shifting as it does from prison to this monstrosity place of work, the viewer is forced to wonder just exactly which is the prison of the picture? For workers trundle in to work, punching in to a clock and sitting at a conveyor belt for hours on end, they are merely robots for this corporate machine, life is indeed desperately dull.

Clair pulls no punches in portraying everyone who doesn't work on the shop floor as greedy capitalist schemers, one sequence literally see the elite grasping for Francs strewn by the mounting storm. This wind of change also releases Emile and Louis from their respective constraints, and it's thru this change that we the viewer are rewarded with a truly uplifting ending that closes the film magnificently. The picture was a flop on its initial release, managing to offend parties from various corners of the globe, but now in this day and age the film has come to be hailed as something of a French masterpiece, coming some five years before Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times {Clair's camp even wanted to sue Chaplin for plagiarism, but Clair actually took it as a compliment}, this clearly is the template movie for industrial indictment. At times devilishly funny, at others poignantly sad, À nous la liberté is a cinematic gem that all serious film lovers should digest at least once. 9/10

Modern Crimes

[wes-connors · 7/10 · 14 June 2010]

From their French prison, convicts Raymond Cordy (as Louis) and Henri Marchand (as Emile) take advantage of silly putty cell bars to carry out a daring escape. The industrious Mr. Cordy is successful, but spirited Mr. Marchand is caught in the act. On the outside, Cordy takes advantage of the assembly-line work he performed in prison to become a prosperous phonograph records tycoon. Ironically, he finds his old friend Marchand working the factory production line, after he also escapes from jail. They renew their friendship, which has been threatened by industry.

Director Rene Clair makes this an artful picture; from the great bicycle stunt win to the flying money, it's excellent - but, alas, not too amusing. The soundtrack, featuring music by Georges Auric, is effective - but, the spoken words seem unnecessary. "A nous la liberte" might have worked better as a non-talking picture. In a case where Mr. Clair felt imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, Charlie Chaplin employed a similar look and thesis for his "Modern Times" (1936). Although Mr. Chaplin's classic is counted as his first fully sound film, it is tellingly silent.

******* A nous la liberte (12/18/31) Rene Clair ~ Raymond Cordy, Henri Marchand, Rolla France, Paul Ollivier

Timeless French classic

[Steamcarrot · 9/10 · 22 November 2006]

This is a little gem of a film that doesn't date nearly as much as you would think, considering it come from the early thirties. The masterful hand of director Rene Clair overcomes an insubstantial plot and imbues the film with some fantastic visuals, humorous satire and some good clean knockabout fun. Two prisoners escape from custody and one reaches the top of the ladder while the other clings onto the bottom rung. Clair makes his feeling about capitalism clear by showing how the worker under the capitalist is as much a prisoner as the people locked in the jail. But any political overtones are not so much that they interrupt with the comic narrative and the film merrily continues with it's chases, bottom-kicking and all manner of good-natured silliness. Highly recommended.

Six of one...

[poe426 · 7/10 · 10 September 2007]

The contention that Charlie Chaplin ripped off Rene Clair's A NOUS LA LIBERTE may have merit (if not, we're talking about one of the greatest coincidences in the history of cinema)- but... When one considers the fact that Clair openly acknowledged Chaplin's influence on his own cinestyle, the point can almost be considered moot. (Certainly there are entire sequences- many of them silent- throughout A NOUS LA LIBERTE that echo Chaplin's style. Shockingly so.) At any rate, both Clair's film and Chaplin's "rip-off," MODERN TIMES, owe a debt to Fritz Lang's brilliant epic, METROPOLIS. (Osamu Tezuka, who would go on to be acknowledged as one of the seminal creators of contemporary manga and anime, would do his own manga version of METROPOLIS years later.) Regardless, Clair was a great filmmaker in his own right. UNDER THE ROOFS OF Paris, which literally begins and ends on the same note, is another Clair film worthy of note: the unprecedented use of sound alone makes this one a must-see for students of film. When it comes to the controversy of A NOUS LA LIBERTE versus MODERN TIMES, it's simply a case of six of one, half dozen of the other. They're both great films, by two of the greatest filmmakers to ever make films.

Delightful!

[puzzow · 8/10 · 27 July 2007]

I profess-- I never heard of this movie nor this director till I watched it tonight. As pointed out, the film has a socialist message-- mainly a scaffolding to hang some very clever physical humor on, though it manages to fit in a few astute (likewise hysterical) observations about modern industrial society. The male leads are absolutely charming and have great chemistry. The style of the film is something in itself. The soundtrack (one of the first original ones to be used in a film) is intertwined with the action on screen, and occasionally the actors sing along with it almost as if this were a musical...but not quite. There are moments of pantomime infused with talking scenes, almost as if the director was trying figure out how to work his style for making silent films into talkies. In total, it's a bit odd-- but it works! And it's unique. And far from dated-- it gave me quite a few belly-laughs.

Modern time the French way

[frankde-jong · 7/10 · 22 October 2019]

Just like "Metropolis" (1927, Fritz Lang) and "Modern times" (1936, Charlie Chaplin) "A nous la liberté" is a film about industrialisation and mechanisation. "Metropolis" is much darker and moralistic in tone. The similarity with "Modern times" is however striking. A mix of comedy and social critisism with the assembly line as central symbol (lunch being served to the workforce on the assembly line) in "A nous la liberté" and the gearing wheel (Charlie being crunched between the gearing wheels) as the central symbol in "Modern times".

The similarity between the two films was so big that the production company of "A nous la liberté" sued "Modern times" because of plagiarism. Rene Clair himself had nothing to do with this claim. He was a great admirer of Chaplin and foud it a great honor that Chaplin was inspired by his film.

"A nous la liberté" is however much broader than industrialisation and mechanisation alone. Not only the workers are the victims of the economic system, also the capitalists are victims of their own greed. In a telling scene a bunch of men in suits is running after banknotes like savage beasts.

One can interpret the message of "A nous la liberté" even broader. One of the main characters is in love with a pretty girl. The girl however loves another man. In the end the main character is happy with the freedom that the loss of the girl gives to him. "Everywhere it's wine and romance".

"A nous la liberté" is one of the first French films of Rene Clair. When he went to the United States in the '40s, his films became more commercial (but not necessarily worse). The directors of the Nouvelle vague hated his American work. They considered Rene Clair as a second rated director. It is sad that also his early (more original) French films suffered from the critisism of the Nouvelle vague directors.

Brilliant Comedy at the Advent of Sound

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 1 June 2016]

A famous left-wing satirical comedy about two ex-convicts, one of whom escaped jail and then worked his way up from salesman to factory owner, where he oversees a highly mechanized operation where the workers are reduced to mere automatons.

Along with his two first sound films, "Sous les toits de Paris" (1930) and "Le Million" (1931), "À nous la liberté" shows Clair continuing to experiment with the possibilities of sound film. The image of a flower in combination with an unseen voice leads the viewer to think the flower is singing. Once accepted, the viewer is led to accept that a chorus of flowers is singing when Émile views the window from prison. As he does with narrative, Clair reveals the truth slowly and in a circuitous way so as to produce comedy and satire, in this case, by first suggesting the flowers are singing, and then that Jeanne is singing, when in fact it is a phonograph—revealed only because it runs down. This really is a great use of sound that was inventive in its day and still works now. I'm not sure if you could put such gags in modern films, but watching them here is still powerful, mostly because the style is still very much that of a silent film.

The film later became embroiled in controversy with the release of Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" (1936), which bore some similarities to this film, such as the conveyor belt gags. Indeed, the film has some very Chaplin-esque qualities to it, and it would not surprise me in the least if Chaplin borrowed from Clair. Yet, as Clair himself maintained, he (Clair) had been inspired by earlier Chaplin films. So was it really theft or just a running homage?

Early Talkie Comedy

[RARubin · 7/10 · 11 April 2006]

It's obvious Clair is a Charles Chaplain fan. Movies had come out of their infancy with Chaplain as the comedy pioneer. Today critics are not as enamored with the little tramp as the critics from the Twenties and Thirties, but Rene Clair makes the most of slapstick comedy or should I say he subdues it just enough to find his own signature.

Clearly, the new talkies confused comedy directors. A Nous la Liberte, the story of two escaped French convicts, were conceived as a silent film. Then music, songs and spare dialogue was inserted tentatively. The actors, Raymond Cordy as the nuevo rich industrialist and Henri Marchard as the Chaplain like tramp speak sparingly, but they do gesture as silent film actors.

Much has been discussed about Chaplain's supposed rip off. City Lights was made five years later and Chaplain and all his production people swore they never saw the French film. Clair himself declared his admiration for Chaplain, his delight that his master would use Clair's material. So this is a bit confusing. The scenes of industrial automation, assembly line inhumanity, were indeed similar in both films. The 20th Century factory was a discussion of that time. Was it dehumanizing or did it provide a better life than the idealized farm memory of the fading 19th Century? Are these films declarations for 1930's Socialism or Fascism? Personally, knowing the politics of Chaplain at least, we can see that the intellectuals preferred Socialism.

eh.

[onepotato2 · 4/10 · 23 December 2007]

It's taken me a while to get to this.

In appraising an old movie, there is entertainment and there are the ideas preserved in it. This movie may entertain some but more than likely a modern viewer will find the entertainment aspect lacking, and the movie a bit slow-moving; much like Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Silent movies just proceed at a different pace which I find to be on the irksome side. You'll be predicting the movies plot points before they arrive. Its reputation as a comedy bewilders me, or at least its reception as one (in the modern era) does.

It's value as a product to move ideas is intact. The socialism guiding every frame makes its points clearly and explicitly. Really... you're not going to miss the point. And the movie adopts various structural mirroring devices that are on the hoary side.

Time is not kind to certain projects. I found myself begging for the long middle portion to speed up or be over with quickly. I felt this was a very average quasi-silent movie that is in our hands today because the production design was a little more novel than most. We just love superficialities like that here in the modern world. (See Blade Runner and it's 387 special editions). I say quasi-silent because the sound appears in concentrated, intermittent segments.

Marvellous early sound film

[ouija-3 · 21 September 2000]

Clair's À nous la liberté is a wonderful satire of modern mass production, magnificently shot, directed, decently acted and with impressive sets. The satirical content is stressed but not too on-your-face. The main reaction to the film is delight.

Some of the sequences were an obvious inspiration to Chaplin, whose masterpiece Modern Times resembles this film quite a lot both in the way it looks as well as thematically.

The picture and sound quality, at least in the version shown on Finnish TV, are superb which is surprising considering the age of the film.

The music is good and well used, except the songs which are slightly irritating. Still, this is a great and pleasing film with a very amusing scene in the end, taking place at the opening of a new factory.

"For us, freedom"

[luigicavaliere · 9/10 · 25 February 2019]

Two prisoners agree with the wink to escape from the prison. During the escape, one is stopped and the other manages to escape, becoming an affirmed businessman. When his friend goes out of prison, he finds him in the industry and, winking, they happily resume their friendship. The entrepreneur is recognized and threatened by other former prison mates, who want their share. The businessman tries to cancel a trial, but they have more than one, so he closes them in a room in his house. By mistake the friend opens the door and the bandits come out warning the police. After a general pantomime set in the industry, the two friends run away without anything embraced but happy with the value of friendship and freedom, which is at the center of the song: "For us, freedom".

nope

[treywillwest · 8/10 · 1 May 2018]

It was striking watching this film shortly after having attended a very fine museum exhibit on American Precisionist painting, a style in vogue at the time this film was made. As in Precisionism, the imagery here is concerned with the industrialization of society. Every facet of social life, not just the work-place, but the school and the prison-system seems to director Rene Clair to have been turned into a factory. The film features some extremely clever editing making the connection between industrial production and the production of passive subjects of capitalism clear. The difference between Clair and the Precisionists is that most of the latter saw in industrialization a utopian promise. What few who didn't, such as George Ault , understood industrialization in apocalyptic terms. In either case, it represented for the Precisionists an absolute transformation of life from which there was no turning back. For the filmmaker's part, Clair clearly understood modernity in sinister terms, industrialization bringing about the mechanization of the subject, but his humanism made it impossible for him to see the modernist challenge to humanity as insurmountable. For Clair, human dignity could be salvaged just by forsaking the materialist temptations of capitalism for the simple pleasures of life. Exploiter and exploited could return to a loving, communal relationship by embracing poverty and freedom. Art historians have proposed that the utopianism of Precisionist art was abolished by the horrific realizations of WWII. That would, it seems to me, to apply equally to the humanist utopia of Clair's cinema.

Clair's delightful Frech comedy and deservingly known as his crowning achievement of scenic designing.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 7/10 · 11 March 2021]

A Nous la Liberte (1931) : Brief Review -

Clair's delightful Frech comedy and deservingly known as his crowning achievement of scenic designing. In early 30s period French Cinema was literally going beyond typical notions of filmmaking and yet they discovered a lot keeping the mainstream flow intact. A Nous la Liberte is another fine example of mainstream plus offbeat cinema in early era of talkies. It may look outdated today and even for its time considering some other brilliant classics made in world cinema before it but it still gives enough satisfaction of watching something new. The film is about two convicts who breaks out from prison to seek a good life in society. One of them becomes and accidental hero and the other one finds tough luck, only for some time. Later, two of them face each other in different situations and their friendship grows even better outside prison. This simple plot takes hilarious directions towards end to create a laugh riot. Henri Marchand and Raymond Cordy's chemistry is great. They perform every angle perfectly whether it is comic or dramatic or serious scene. Watch out for their tramp activities even while being in sophisticated ventures. The lady star Rolla France looks gorgeous as Jeanne but there's nothing more than this to it. Rene Clair had been thinking out of the boundaries and mainstream formulas and he successfully broke many barriers that time with his earlier films. Even after doing so good with early films he still manages to break a new formula with A Nous la Liberte as he mixes the French society issues in comedy soup to deliver a thought-provoking funny film. Overall, it's a great watch even for today's time without any compromises with your mindset. A sensible comedy never bores.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest

Lighthearted Rene Clair Non-Genre Social Commentary

[gengar843 · 7/10 · 7 November 2021]

THE STORY & GENRE -- This is a comedy with social commentary on the Industrial Age and on happiness. Louis (Raymond Cordy) is an escaped prisoner who becomes a huge industrialist success. His accomplice Emile (Henri Marchand) is however caught and serves his time, but then is re-imprisoned for vagrancy. He escapes again after a failed suicide attempt, then by happenstance gets a job at Louis' factory. Much focus is then placed upon the "incarceration" of factory life, executive life, public life, and married life. In the end, there is another escape for Emile and Louis. The point of the film seems to be that personal freedom is more important than money and power. Although there are a few futuristic or fantasy elements, these are not the point of the film, and therefore I would say this is not genre. Rene Clair, who excelled in lighthearted fantasy (THE CRAZY RAY, IT HAPPENED TOMORROW, I MARRIED A WITCH) directs, but this also does not make it genre.

THE VERDICT -- Likable. No surprise with Clair at the helm. It's French (light) in nature, not German (heavy) like METROPOLIS, or American (blase) like MODERN TIMES, which I believe A NOUS LA LIBERTE imitates (but I would not say mocks). There is a buffoonery like Chaplin here but also a camaraderie between the leads like Laurel & Hardy, and it comes across genuine and funny. The visuals have a delightful Art Deco look. If there is any flaw, the movie just seems a bit dragged out. Solid 7.5.

FREE ONLINE -- Yes, the 84-minute USA re-release in the Criterion Collection. I have never seen a 97-minute version.

Cinema a la France and Hollywood

[propos-86965 · 8/10 · 10 May 2020]

Much has been written regarding the most likely influence of A Nous la Liberte on Chaplin's Modern Times. Though you could argue that Clair was also influenced by Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops films. I, also, see the two prison buddies to be reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy in their physical contrast and on and off affection. Even with borrowing or outright plagiarism, this is a little gem of a movie worthy of its historic stature. By the way, I'd say Jacque Tati must have seen Clair's film and paid homage in his film Traffic. N'est-ce pas?

À Nous la Liberté (Freedom for Us)

[jboothmillard · 6/10 · 15 April 2013]

This French film was featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and from director René Clair (Beau Travail) it sounded like an interesting concept, I was kind of surprised to see only an average rating by the critics, but that didn't put me off wanting to see it. Basically in a French prison, cell mates Émile (Henri Marchand) and Louis (Raymond Cordy) are friends, and day after day they work in labour assembling various things, e.g. wood or metal products, and together they plan to make an escape. After the plan goes ahead only Louis successfully gets out and makes it, and on the outside after some time he reestablishes himself as a captain of industry and opening his own phonograph manufacturing company which gains good success. Émile feeling he would not be able to do it without the assistance of his friend has no further plans to try and escape again, but he does manage to seize an opportunity to do it himself, and he manages it. On the outside he goes to the primary phonograph factory owned by Louis and gets a job there, he has no idea his friend is the owner, and when they do reunite it coincides with the plan to upgrade factory operations to supply products mechanised. While dealing with their lives, issue with women and staying one step ahead of the law who may be searching for them, and the modernisation they learn will ultimately lead to emotional freedom that could not have come from escaping the prison confines, but they also find freedom brings some consequences. Also starring Rolla France as Jeanne, Paul Ollivier as Uncle Paul Imaque, Jacques Shelly as Paul, André Michaud as Foreman, Germaine Aussey as Maud and Alexander D'Arcy as Gigolo. The two leading actors playing the prisoners who may actually want to do some kind of good after escaping their captivity are good, I recognised immediately that this film obviously influenced Sir Charlie Chaplin to create the film Modern Times, there was even a failed legal battle by a producer to claim for plagiarism, but the director felt flattered, it is a funny film displaying then modern life in a certain environment, and a most watchable satire. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Art Direction. Good!

Aren't We All Escapees?

[rmax304823 · 8/10 · 22 July 2013]

Raymond Cordi and Henri Marchand are two prisoners in an environment without soul. The inmates all sit at a long table and make tiny toy horses on an assembly line. When chow time rolls around they clunk along in ragged lockstep in their wooden sabots to the mess hall where they sit at long tables and serve themselves from a treadmill bearing bowls of food and pitchers of water.

Cordi escapes with the help of Marchand who is captured. Cordi is a promoter and begins a business selling old phonograph records on the street. Soon he's a big shot, a millionaire in charge of a huge plant, and owner of The Record Palace.

Later, Marchand escapes too, in the kind of scene that Charlie Chaplin might easily have used in "Modern Times", which appeared five years later. Marchard is in his cell and decides to hang himself. He fastens a short noose around his neck and ties the other end to the bars across his cell window. Then he jumps from the bed. His weight pulls the bars from the window and they fall with a clank on his head.

Overjoyed, Marchand climbs to the open window and looks out. On the curb below him sits an armless and crippled beggar with a coat draped over him, cadging change from passers by. Marchand leaps from the window and lands atop the beggar, who jumps to his feet and shrugs off the coat, revealing two brawny arms. A mélée ensues and Marchand is able to dash away.

I don't know if Chaplin was inspired by "À Nous la Liberté," but it's a little too coincidental that in both films the workers should sit at an assembly line, one should miss a beat, causing the next to miss a beat, and wind up with half a dozen workers piling all over one another trying to catch up to the unfinished items on the assembly line. I guess if it was good enough for René Clair it's good enough for Chaplin, and for Lucy and Ethel too, for that matter.

The plot gets a bit complicated. Marchand seeks out Cordi, who is of two minds about the matter, but helps him out anyway. Others discover Cordi's real identity and expose him. But just as the police are about to take him in hand, Cordi decides to get out from under and turn the factory over to the workers.

If it was funny and sometimes touching before, the climax is hilarious. An ancient executive of the company is trying to read a famous poem in front of all the other executives and the workers. Gradually, a wind begins to blow, and then blows even stronger. From a hidden stash, a thousand franc note blows passed the executives in their tuxedos and high hats. A second note. The executives are getting antsy as the notes blow past their feet. They fidget and squirm, trying to remain dignified as befits their status, until one of them breaks ranks and makes a bee-line for a thousand-franc note. Then they all run madly after the money and so does everyone else. The listeners brawl, the wind blows away the stand, the band disappears, and the wizened old speaker finally finishes his poem, only to look up and find the entire courtyard empty.

Cordi is the model of a phony rich guy who has married into society and now has a wife who loathes him and is having an affair with another mustachioed man whose hair seems made entirely of grease. Marchand couldn't be better as the simple-minded and impulsive child-like figure. And the director, René Clair, has done well by them. When the two escapees are together and faced by some common threat, they exchange glances and we can hear the rough cadence of those wooden clogs on the prison floor.

Who's stealing from who?

[Spuzzlightyear · 5/10 · 2 January 2005]

It;s easy to see, while watching À nous la liberté how much Rene Clair loves the cinema, full of interesting angles and ideas, it's easy how everyone from Chaplin to heck even Jamison Handy ripped ideas off of him for this film. This film is more flash then substance, and I am sure Clair knows it. The story is simple, 2 con men escape prison, one ends up more financially successful then the other. Although rich with neat ideas, it's incredibly boring at times, and sometimes you're waiting for the next nouveau idea to come up to start picking things up again. Much has been said about Chaplin "borrowing" from this film, and that's painfully obvious. But watching this film one wonders how much Rene Clair stole from OTHER people, like Fritz Lang's Metropolis or even the socialist Russian films of the 30's...

One of the great masterpieces of the early French Sound Cinema.

[PaulinCa · 20 October 1999]

I was lucky enough to see "A Nous La Liberte" along with it's sister film (in my mind, anyway) "Le Million" at an early age at the Museum of Modern Art. I have never gotten over them. They are both miracles of studio production with even many of the exteriors built in studio. Both films were designed by the great Lazare Meerson and evoke the magical Paris of the 20's. Both films make wonderful, inventive use of music and song, though neither one is exactly a Musical in the modern sense. "A Nous La Liberte" is also interesting for having been Chaplin's inspiration for much of "Modern Times."

Human Life?

[sb-47-608737 · 9/10 · 8 December 2018]

While watching a masterpiece, by a master craftsman, I try to understand what he wanted to convey. The story is covered in various other reviews, some hailed it masterpiece, some denigrated it. I go with the former, but there is only one important piece of the puzzle not spelt out. Why did the two land up in gaol ? I assume due to tramping / begging (since in the end they did say the earth is round - which I mean they meant to tell that they are where they started from). In between what happened is all a part of human life - in modern age - and I don't mean modern age as they thought in 1931, but it is as much or more, applicable today. You are born free, happy, as children, without any thought of tomorrow, living in the present. That is till you are caught and put in jail (school, if you like it, and the director too meant it, in a small clip). Whether on completion of term (Emile), or even before like Bill Gates (Lois), you escape the grinding, aiming to be free. But are you ? You struggle a bit and then fall back into another jail and are back into your mechanical life again. You might or might not realise it, but that's how it becomes. Only difference is that in this mechanical life, you grow, go up the ladder of social life, get love (may be even lose it). You think that your now starched collar gives you the happiness, probably till you see another one who has just learnt to enjoy (Emile, freshly discharged) and join him in the childish frame. The mechanical life goes on, with its ups and downs - till it is the time. The others now put on the demands on whatever you have gained, and thought your own, and then you give it all (have to) and along with it, the mechanical life, and then you are back to the first stage (old and retired in physical sense), the same carefree life. The assembly line - in the middle shows the two stages, much too well. When you are in school, you complete the job (the wooden toys) by yourself, each one his own. But in the next stage, you have to work with others, each people adding up or complementing the other. Some in the good books of the Boss, or by own efforts move up, but are they happy/ free / out of mechanical life ?