The rules of the game: affections in full blossom

One of the best films ever produced, The Rules of the Game, 1939, begins with a reception for pilot Andre Jurieu who arrives from a trans-Atlantic solo flight just ten years after the crossing of the famous Charles Lindbergh. Although welcomed by a crowd and authorities, the then-national hero whines in his radio interview because his beloved has not come to greet him at the airport.

The beloved, for him but not his, is Christine, wife of Marquis Robert de Las Chesnaye, a millionaire who loves small mechanical toys. As she and Jurieu spent many moments together, the pilot believes that the right thing to do, by the rules of the game, is to communicate to the husband that they are together. The Marquis, in turn, is parting ways with his long-time lover, Genevieve, because he also wants to follow the rules of the game with his wife.

From Paris, the action is transferred to Robert's hunting station at La Colinière, where everyone is staying: husbands, wives, lovers, suitors and even a poacher, Marceau, who is hired by the marquis and soon becomes intimate with the marquise’s chambermaid, Lisette, wife of another character who is also a follower of the rules, the gamekeeper Schumacher who looks more like a German military commander.

With so much affection in full blossom, it would be inevitable that farce scenes would occur. In any movie, the director puts on a character that causes encounters and mismatches. In this movie, the director himself is the character who transits between all novels and dialogues: he is jolly and plump Octave, a friend of the pilot, wife, marquess, chambermaid, lover, and finally also in love with Christine.

When a murder (or accident?) happens at the end of the movie, the audience is hardly scared, as in an earlier scene they witnessed an impressive massacre. All the guests walk happily through the forest, each armed with hunting rifles, and kill dozens of rabbits and pheasants. However, as much as the death of a human being causes is a warning that all guests return to the castle so as not to contract any illness.

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