A Nous La Liberte

Just a response to another reviewer; yes, this is Clair's 1950 recut of the film. But the recut is ill-advised, and is generally considered by most historians as a prime example of someone far removed from the circumstances of the film's actual production butchering their own work.

Is this the 1931 classic, intact, as Clair originally intended?

No, it is a recut, which most critics feel strongly is a disgrace.

Do NOT buy this DVD; get the uncut version on VHS while you still can. Once again, Criterion should have restored the original version, rather than presenting this cut version; anything less violates entirely the spirit of the original film.

A wonderful film by the French director René Clair about the mechanizationand increasing regimentation of society. Produced in 1931, this film was the inspiration for Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times".

"À Nous la Liberté" begins with two men in prison, one escapes and becomes what they both detested: a modern man with a cash register for a heart and no sense of the value of individual freedom, no sense of the simple pleasures of life. His friend is released in a few years and finds his old cell mate now the owner of a phonograph factory that employs men in the same regimented atmosphere as that of a prison. From the prison work shop to the factory assembly line, full circle. The film itself is a delight, a tale of friendship that is full of humour, but it's also a frank satire on the dehumanizing effects of industrialization and consumerism.

This Criterion DVD includes a twenty-five minute interview from 2002 with a film historian about the litigation between Clair's studio and Charlie Chaplin's studio, the former having charged the latter with plagiarism. There is also a fifteen minute interview with René Clair's widow, filmed in 1998.

As has already been mentioned by other reviewers, the film is the edited version with the singing flower scene cut out, however this scene has been included separately on the DVD along with another less contentious edited scene.

All in all, highly recommended!

Yes, it's sad Criterion didn't restore the scenes... and, deleting the lovely singing flower bit diminishes the poignancy of the leads wooing of his new love. But, like all good editing, you'd never know those two scenes existed if you weren't told. Clair's film is beautifully shot, art direction is stunning, and it's theme of Man vs. Mass Society (not my phrase, but Gabriel Marcel's)a telling comment on the state of affairs in early 1930's Europe. Clair uses sound to great effect (other directors of the time struggled with it... see Fritz Lang's on again off again sound in "M", released the same year). It's not a laugh-out-loud comedy... it's more sweet and witty. It's gags are inventive, though. The scene of the business elite chasing francs around a windy courtroom is a lovely image, given the economy of 1931. All in all, a classic which will be a delight to anyone interested in the history of film... or, for that matter, the history of Europe.