Comida en la hierba
By Charlotte Stace
CaixaForum screens Jean Renoir’s 1959 classic, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Picnic on the Grass), as part of José Luis Guerin “The Film Landscape” film series at the museum.
The film’s title links nature and impressionist painting - French painter Édouard Manet created one of his most famous paintings of the same title in the 1860s. It follows the story of Etienne Alexis, a scientist who hosts a picnic for his engagement to one of his German cousin’s, but a storm brings him closer to Nénette, a local farm girl who is not impressed.
The film is shot at the director’s family home in Provence which houses the studio of his father, the late French painter Auguste Renoir. He filmed the piece with the knowledge that every tree filmed had previously been observed and painted by his father, who worked in that same garden. The film will be shown in French with subtitles in Spanish.