Si tu veux (1932) Review: A Creaky, Charming French Time Machine

If you aren't a massive fan of creaky 1930s French cinema, you should probably skip Si tu veux right now. It's a dusty little relic that only film historians or people who love scratchy old talkies will actually sit through.

Anyone looking for a fast-paced story or clean sound will absolutely hate it. 😅

The whole thing feels like a filmed stage play where people just walk into a fancy living room, yell a bit, and then leave. Jeanne Boitel is incredibly classy here, though she looks like she's constantly wondering if she left her stove on back home.

Then you have Armand Bernard, who basically acts with his entire body. He waves his arms so much during his rants that I thought he might actually fly away.

The plot is some thin stuff about love, marriage, and money. Honestly, I completely lost track of who was marrying who about thirty minutes into the thing.

It kind of reminds me of how they set up those early silent relationship comedies, like How to Catch Men, except here they just talk and talk without stopping to breathe.

And boy, the sound recording is incredibly rough.

There is this constant, loud hiss in the background that sounds like someone is frying bacon right next to the microphone. You get used to it after a while, but it's pretty distracting at first.

There's one scene where a guy is supposed to be crying, but he just covers his face and shakes his shoulders really hard. It is not very convincing, but it made me laugh out loud.

Also, the camera barely moves.

It just sits there like a heavy piece of living room furniture, watching these actors pace back and forth in front of it. Sometimes a character will walk entirely out of the frame, and the camera doesn't even bother to pan and follow them.

It just waits for them to come back into the shot. 🤷‍♂️

Things I wrote down in my notebook:

• The hats in this movie are absolutely massive, like giant satellites sitting on the women's heads.
• I think one actor completely forgot his line and just stared at the ceiling for a solid five seconds before continuing.
• The music sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can.
• Why is everyone always holding a tiny piece of paper they just received?

It's not a masterpiece, not even close. But if you want to see how French filmmakers were struggling to figure out the whole "sound" thing in 1932, it's a fun little time machine to jump into.