[psycho d]

The Rules of the Game (1939). This hinted at being a mess of a painfully convoluted movie, with many characters and underlying back stories and such, but instead it turned into an orchestra of perfectly portrayed chaos of bourgeois tomfoolery. Seamlessly moving from the laughably absurd to grounded realism, the fluidity of this flick defies the complexity of direction. The acting was sublime, with characters whose actions were so mundanely believable that they almost seemed flat, and perfectly so. The direction was phenomenal, with long takes incorporating multiple scenes, all told with the feeling of voyeurism. The story was a portrayal of a decadent society, where the walls of well-instituted hierarchies are breached, bourgeois and proletariat mingle with inappropriate abandon, the last step before ruin. It is also a beautifully weaved story of infidelity, with an ending whose denouement was a requisite sacrifice for some sort of cosmic repentance. A movie that warrants multiple viewings, this was indeed a classic in every sense of the word. Merci beaucoup.