Transporting his life from Italy to Southern France, Toni (Blavette) works in a local quarry, and takes in a mistress Marie (Hélia), the landlady of the lodgings he stays, but soon gets smitten with a Spanish guest-worker Josepha (Montalván), the niece of his friend Sebastian (Kovachevitch). However, a flirty Josepha chooses to get hitched with Albert (Dalhan), to Toni’s utter dismay, he reluctantly marries Marie.

Neither matrimonies are heading to a purple patch. Toni’s flat annoyance of Marie drives her suicidal, and Albert’s skirt-chasing nature leaves Josepha in misery. Obviously, both (Toni and Josepha) realize that they have made a grave mistake, and in Jean Renoir’s trenchant moral dissection, do they deserve a second chance? Yes and no.

For a film made in 1935, the most spellbindingly avant garde wow factor of TONI is that it is shot in location from the ground up, it is totally inconceivable that at then Renoir and co. could have already attained such a filmic facility with those clunky, antediluvian machines, tapping into the natural, organic landform to tell his story in almost a modernist, expressive fashion. Look at the shot where Marie, transcendentally leaning forward in a becalmed punt on the surface of still waters, pondering a death wish to end her chronic despair; or the close-ups of Josepha and Albert during their death-dealing kerfuffle, TONI might not be a major Renoir, but there is irrefutable that in it, Renoir has pioneered the rules of the game far prior than almost anyone else, what is more, his imagery and montage cohere to a uniquely deathless aesthetics which can be faultlessly appreciated by posterity.

Streaming along Paul Bozzi’s folksy strains, what TONI lacks is a refined protagonist by using mostly nonprofessionals, Blavette is too anonymous an actor to carry the weight of a leading man, but Montalván has a fierce visage that is both dramatic and cinematic, and when all is said and done, it is Andrex, as the shiftless Gabi, Josepha’s cousin, who effortlessly brings some sophistication and cunningness into the fray, because as primitive as Toni is, Renoir’s penchant of heroizing him while subtly imputing his downfall to Josepha’s congenital promiscuity may deter some audience to warm this otherwise, rather groundbreaking forebear of Nouvelle Vague.

referential entries: Renoir’s THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939, 8.4/10); Marcel Pagnol’s HARVEST (1937, 8.0/10); Luchino Visconti’s OBSESSION (1943, 8.7/10).