A Nous la Liberte (1931)

Rene Clair's "A Nous la Liberte"

After a string of global successes in 1930s "Under the Roofs of Paris" and "Le Million," Rene Clair made his chef-d'oeuvre, "A Nous la Liberte." Although not entirely musical, the film features musical elements, which only add to the whimsical and lyrical tone of the film. This tone allows for the more critical aspects of the film to be examined without sacrificing entertainment value. Many consider "A Nous la Liberte" to be Clair's masterpiece, as it was a culmination of the style, tones, and themes present in his earlier work presented in a more cohesive and expressive picture. 

The film follows Louis, a man who escapes from prison and becomes a wealthy industrialist making record players. However, one of his other friends who helped him escape, Emile, shows up and begins to mess things up. Emile begins to show how 'uncivilized' and 'un-upper-class' Louis is to his upper-class friends. On top of this, the police begin to suspect that Louis is the escaped convict they're looking for. After presenting a self-automated factory that replaces humans altogether, Louis goes on the run again with Emile. While the wealthy elite and factory workers spend their day in leisure, Emile and Luis are beggars traveling across the country.

The film's main thematic point involves the indistinguishability between the industrialist landscape the characters find themselves in and the prison from which they just escaped. Clair makes a visual point to make the two identical in composition and set design. When we start the film, the inmates are seated at long tables making wooden horses while the guards watch over them. Later in the film, we see the exact same shots, but of workers in a factory setting at long conveyer belt assembly lines making record players while managers watch over them making sure they work. The implication of these images is that the modern industrialist landscape has turned its employees into economic prisoners. In 1931, there were many critical viewpoints of the industrial, capitalist world that was forming, as many unions were created to counteract the oppressive nature of the wealthy business owners towards their workers. The film also criticizes those very business owners and the amount of power and authority they possess. When Louis becomes this wealthy business owner, he abuses his power by paying people off to do his bidding. However, complexity is also presented with the wealthy elite. In the scenes in which Louis takes Emile to a fancy dinner with his wealthy friends, Emile and Louis begin to act like old prison buddies. They start behaving 'uncouth' as they laugh loudly, drink heavily, and play games. With this, they become their natural selves, thereby being 'free' and 'unrestrained' by social etiquette. In contrast, it appears that the social etiquette that the remaining wealthy members abide by is actually trapping them as well (just as the prisoners and workers are trapped). These wealthy members of society cannot actually behave as they would want to or be their 'natural' selves in any sense. So, it seems as though Clair is saying that EVERYONE is trapped by the industrialist, capitalist society they have found themselves in. 

Rene Clair was so visually creative at rendering this modern image of society that many other filmmakers borrowed from "A Nous la Liberte." The work of Jean Renoir would be a good example of this. Renoir's film would tackle such topics as social liberalism, capitalism, and modernism. In Renoir's "Boudu Saved from Drowning" the following year, Renoir uses similar elements from the dinner scenes in "A Nous la Liberte." In the latter, Clair distinguishes Louis and Emile as being drastically different from their wealthy counterparts by visually asserting their 'uncouth' behavior with dramatic physical movements. These movements by Emile and Louis make them look like animals compared to the more restrained environment. Renoir does this exact thing in "Boudu," as the character of Boudu uses his physical form in direct conflict with the physical spaces around him. Similarly, Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" also tackles the themes prevalent within "A Nous la Liberte." Chaplin even includes scenes almost identical to Clair's film, like a scene involving a comedic disruption of an assembly line in which Emile messes up the whole line by missing a piece he was supposed to place on the product. In fact, the similarities between the two films were so prevalent that a lawsuit was filed against Chaplin. According to Chaplin, he claimed he had never seen Clair's film, and a settlement was eventually reached. 

Despite having such critical themes, "A Nous la Liberte" remains a comedic piece of work. Its reach could be found in Renoir, Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and Jaques Tati. Its depiction of a modern industrialist prison was a direct criticism of the modern world in 1931. Many film historians say the film was a direct pushback against both Stalinism and industrial dehumanization.