It's the Flemish town of Boom in the 17th century and the conquering Spanish army is going to spend the night in the village, preceded by rumors of pillaging, barbarity, rapine, torture, infanticide, and smoking in public.
The men of the town are mostly plump burghers and they're terrified. The women, led by the Burgomaster's wife (Rosay), decide that instead of being sullen and acting scared they'll welcome the Spaniards and perhaps mollify them by being accommodating. It works.
The first impression a view is likely to get is that this is some sort of animated cartoon full of elaborately (and sometimes definitely weirdly) costumed men and women dashing around excitedly and shouting at one another in French.
My impression didn't change all that much, though I waited patiently for something more outrageous than a stout man rolling helplessly down a flight of stairs -- we can get that in Laurel and Hardy -- and a suggestion of cuckolding.
The costumes arrest the attention. They're absurd and they're dwelled on too. Rips are sewn up and women worry whether their mourning clothes are still in fashion. The Spanish lieutenant is gay and given to needlepoint or whatever it is -- and he knows all about it. There's a dwarf who loves his two pet monkeys and has to sit on a few volumes of Erasmus ("A pain in the a**") in order to reach the dinner table. There is a priest who extorts money from the dwarf and accepts gifts by passing out indulgences, which are absolution for sins yet to be committed. The priest gets drunk. There is a painter, Jan Breughel the younger, whose work is now valuable but considered imitative -- as one of the Spaniards remarks.
All in all, everybody sings and dances and has a good old time except the men of the village, who are mostly in hiding, less those who run the inn and are making scads of dough. Oh, and the viewer's enjoyment is moderate, like that of the only sober person at the party.
The men of the town are mostly plump burghers and they're terrified. The women, led by the Burgomaster's wife (Rosay), decide that instead of being sullen and acting scared they'll welcome the Spaniards and perhaps mollify them by being accommodating. It works.
The first impression a view is likely to get is that this is some sort of animated cartoon full of elaborately (and sometimes definitely weirdly) costumed men and women dashing around excitedly and shouting at one another in French.
My impression didn't change all that much, though I waited patiently for something more outrageous than a stout man rolling helplessly down a flight of stairs -- we can get that in Laurel and Hardy -- and a suggestion of cuckolding.
The costumes arrest the attention. They're absurd and they're dwelled on too. Rips are sewn up and women worry whether their mourning clothes are still in fashion. The Spanish lieutenant is gay and given to needlepoint or whatever it is -- and he knows all about it. There's a dwarf who loves his two pet monkeys and has to sit on a few volumes of Erasmus ("A pain in the a**") in order to reach the dinner table. There is a priest who extorts money from the dwarf and accepts gifts by passing out indulgences, which are absolution for sins yet to be committed. The priest gets drunk. There is a painter, Jan Breughel the younger, whose work is now valuable but considered imitative -- as one of the Spaniards remarks.
All in all, everybody sings and dances and has a good old time except the men of the village, who are mostly in hiding, less those who run the inn and are making scads of dough. Oh, and the viewer's enjoyment is moderate, like that of the only sober person at the party.