La Ronde

Directed by Max Ophuls, with Simone Signoret and Simone Simon, among others. Anton Walbrook plays the narrator, who in a direct address to the audience identifies himself as one ‘who knows all that you can’t know’. He leads us to a merry-go-round, or ronde, which works as a kind of focalizing metaphor for the circulating nature of erotic entanglements. After introducing us to the story of a soldier and a prostitute he continues to appear in almost every sketch, occasionally offering pithy commentary or doing something to move the plot along. The film rolls from one love story to another, with little distinction made between young love and adultery, or really even happiness or sadness. There is, in fact, a bittersweet sense to every story, suggesting that in matters of the heart all our choices are follies not to be taken too seriously.