A married upper class couple – outside harmonic but in their hearts separate – decides, to host a party in their countryside home. Die hostess Christine is excited to meet her lover, the legendary pilot André Jurieux, who just flew over the Atlantic. Octave, an older friend of both, warns André, since to persist in the high society, one must follow the rules of the game. Just as André arrives, Christine talks openly about their relationship. As the party is getting out of control, all norms of society are broken. In the end someone has to be sacrificed for the breaking of the rules.
La règle du jeu shows the “Last Supper” of the high society and explores a social class from it falling apart to its reconstruction. Jean Renoirs carefully constructed story reveals the complex emotions – treason and greed, jealousy and disappointment – which define the interaction between the characters and delivers a critique of the falling aristocracy, the social reality with its seeming indestructible order and the ruling class-relations.
Yumo Cheng
