You would need a soul of potash not to savour the delicious fauna and flattering southern light. But the film never gets far beyond the decorative.

The story falters when it runs through its very traditional, even hackneyed arcs ...

This gives a new meaning to Truffaut's phrase le cinma du papa.

Unlike the work of the men who bear the surname - one a painter at the end of his life, the other a great filmmaker in the making - Renoir the film appears to have almost no imperative for existing.