Review of The Woman on the Beach

This is an amazing and unknown film by Jean Renoir which has been unjustly apparently totally forgotten and neglected. It is sticking out as his oddest production, while it was actually his one effort at making a noir. It was so bold in its dramatic scenes of intimacy, that the producers cut out large portions of it, particularly scenes between Joan Bennett and Robert Ryan of sexually too provocative character - that's why the film is so short. But there is nothing wrong with its intensity, which is breathlessly sustained all the way, it is also Renoir's most romantic film, with constant presence of the stormy sea amid suggestive coast scenery with an important wreck, and the actors are outstanding, maybe particularly Charles Bickman as the blind painter. He lives on the coast with his wife Joan Bennett when Robert Ryan as a PTSD-suffering officer comes by and complicates relationships. I was seldom so positively surprised by Renoir, I thought I had seen all his films, and here was yet another masterpiece and totally unknown at that. The film is a marvel. The drama is perfect in intensity and human passionate psychology going deep under, although there is no real climax, conclusion or settlement or logical solution, like an episode without end, but very satisfactory all the same, and the music underscores its high romantic character.