Five friends, united first by poverty and then by an unexpected lottery win, abandon Paris to renovate a ruin on the banks of the Marne, transforming it into a ‘guinguette’ (open-air café). They pursue a utopian community, which gradually falls apart.
“Ik heb vaak gefoeterd op de wreedheid van de film zonder in te zien dat die wreedheid ook haar (Mizoguchi-achtige) keerzijde had, namelijk compassie. Tegenwoordig zie ik het licht van de cinema eerder als een ruimte voor verzoening of zelfs boetedoening.”
“Unemployment is the vital question. [...] Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.”
Charles Chaplin in a newspaper in 1931
When a wrongly accused prisoner barely survives a lynch mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.