'Le Plaisir', Max Ophuls, (1952).

'There is no joy in happiness', is the closing phrase of Max Ophuls's 'Le Plaisir'.  It is the parting words of a story which while sad, promises a marriage. This sugar lump cliche is served up as a cold comfort, by the time the story has come to its end. Such simply phrased, cruelly delivered pearls typify the atmosphere of this film. It is a world of illicit joy, pathetic failure, and uncomfortable delight brought to you by a narrator who prefers the dark to guide us through these Guy de Maupassant stories because it provides both intimacy and anonymity. Such a paradox typifies the voyeuristic pleasure in watching the three episodes of the film. Peeping through the window pains, back doors and open shutters, each segment is exquisitely told, with plenty of french lace, and ominous shadows. You are danced through the stories at a whurlwind pace,  yet can't leave the ball without feeling more than a slight chill at the company you've seen. The characters are portrayed as  over-ripe fruit: poised between a nutritious delicacy and fecund rubbish. There is nothing in here that a mature child couldn't understand, yet the love-play between pleasure, innocence and death has an eloquence which I find unmatched.