Criterion has turned out a restored version of Jean Renoir’s early talkie that will be a revelation for those used to the muddy 16mm prints that long circulated. Image & sound have come up amazingly well & make this a treat as both art and artifact. As the rescued tramp, Michel Simon has the natural air of a dog captured on film and if the rest of the cast are more conventional, they’re remarkably conversational for early ‘30s. The bourgeois bookseller who saves Boudu may learn that no good deed goes unpunished as he helplessly watches his natural man upturn his home & family, but Renoir avoids easy societal condemnations letting the loose, episodic structure reveal a multifaceted comedy of cause and effect. Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes & Descartes all get dunked in the drink somewhere along the line.
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