On the surface, Jean Renoir’s brilliant satire is a series of interlinked romantic intrigues that take place during a weekend shooting party in a country château. But the film is, in fact, a study of the corruption and decay at the top of French society on the eve of the Second World War.
Denigrated by the public, vilified by the critics, re-cut at the insistence of its producers and ultimately banned by the French government as demoralising and unpatriotic, La Règle du jeu is today widely recognised as one of the greatest films ever made.
