Carnival in Flanders

Carnival in Flanders (1935)

La Kermesse héroïque

The Spanish soldiers were not as ruthless as they were depicted

Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic like rats on a sinking ship, the brave female citizens, led by the bold wife of the burgomaster, decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet.

Date of release
1935-12-03
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (54)
Runtime
1h 50m
Genres
Comedy, History, Romance
Director
Jacques Feyder

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Bruges and Paris

Carnival in Flanders is a 1935 French historical romantic comedy film directed by Jacques Feyder, and created during the poetic realism period in 1930s France. It is also widely known under its original title in French, La Kermesse héroïque. A German-language version of the film was made simultaneously and was released under the title Die klugen Frauen, featuring Ernst Schiffner in one of his early film roles.

Production design

Production designer Lazare Meerson was put in charge of creating the setting for the film. He had to bring Feyder's vision to life, a challenging task for a story set several hundred years prior to the time of production. Meerson took care in building the set from scratch, and, as The National Board of Review Magazine notes, he was able to elegantly contrive an atmosphere true to 17th century Flanders.

The scale and detail of the set was achieved by Feyder and Meerson’s insistence to their German financial backers, which led them to dig a canal through the center of the Epinay Studios. The Flemish town was created around the canal in the architectural styles of the age depicted, providing the stylized depth which was Meerson’s trademark.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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