Toni (1935)

Jean Renoir's seminal 1935 drama uses non-professional actors and location shooting, an influential move that predates Italian neorealism by a decade (and, interestingly, Toni's assistant director was Luchino Visconti who would go on to be one of the founders of that naturalistic movement). The story, based on a police dossier concerning a provincial crime of passion, examines the romantic entanglements of a group of immigrants in 1920s southern France.

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