This trilogy of tales adapted from De Maupassant is such a vivid contrast to today's mainstream cinema of frenetic editing, overblown adventure and concurrent explosions; instead, it is an evocation of times gone by, three mood pieces enriched by incredibly complex but telling cinematography. A personal favorite is the middle story, The Teller House, relating how some Ladies of The Night close their beloved city brothel for a night in order to attend a niece's Catholic confirmation in a small town; Ophuls captures the contrast between the women dressed in their lavish best with the simplicity not only of the child but all the village in their working class blacks, as they attend the service in a local church and surprise themselves and the town folk with an emotional catharsis; the episode is incredibly rich in atmospherics, capturing everything from the baroque traceries of the tiny church to the rickety wooden train interiors; the tracking shots of the brothel exterior, creating a sense of voyeuristic benevolence are simply incredible! The remaining two stories offer pleasures of their own in this lovely film with a sadly ironic view of happiness

For me viewing 'Le Plaisir' in the DVD format happened by chance, as I knew nothing about Max Ophuls and the film until then. And what a surprise! It is good old-fashioned story telling (three stories) with a movie camera, in black and white. If not done right this can be a very boring exercise, but not with Le Plaisir.Story 1 about an old man putting on a mask to look young is probably the weakest story of the three. Story 2 about several women of pleasure taking time off in the country side is my favourite. All in all, the film is definitely engaging and the stories were well told. Max Ophuls, whom I knew nothing about, is on my watch list.A very enjoyable film for a quiet evening.

A trilogy of Guy de Maupassant stories, two short simple ones framing a long and impossibly rich one, and I don't know why everyone complains about the framing ones - everything is given exactly the weight that their narrative will support. An old man dressing up like a young dandy to relive the gavotting excesses of his youth, only to end in physical collapse, starts things off; and to close we have a beautiful young couple who go from romantic bliss to petty vindictiveness to resigned acceptance via an attempted suicide. This gives us a rather complex understanding of the meaning of 'pleasure', and the worst you can say is that one and three don't utterly embody pleasure the way number two does (although the swirling camera work in the dance scene comes damn close). The story of a troop of sex workers romping off to a country wedding is simplicity itself, but also incredibly rich - full of memorable human beings and interactions. Everyone sees happiness in the place that they're not, but this episode celebrates life wherever it finds it, and it's a joy to watch.

Happiness, says the narrator at the end, is not a lark. And the film believes it, even though as he speaks the glimpses of children playing with kites and daintily placed chairs on the beach (echoing those set out earlier by Gabin in the back of his cart for the visiting prostitutes) continue to evoke the swirling compositional grace and elegance which mark the film's every moment. Far more unpredictable and radical than most portmanteau films, the highlight is the second story, which at first seems to be about a group of men who get together one night when the local brothel is closed, then follows the whores' trip to the country (with a delightful interlude on the train as they share the compartment with an old peasant couple and a randy salesman); then returns to the brothel - Ophuls' highly liberal camera ultimately pans deliriously around the windows from the outside as the place fills with dance, spilling celebration and delight. The many surprises of that story perfectly evoke the enormous span of human emotional experience; it touches on so many dreams of escape whereas the other two episodes, both much shorter and darker, remind us of the occasional price of such dreams.