‘The Golden Coach’ or — A Vehicle Of Transportation?
It’s Peru, in the 18th Century to be precise, and the Viceroy of the Spanish nobility ensconced there has purchased a golden coach he’s having imported from Europe. The coach will be a symbol to impress the locals, but really he just wants to give it to his girlfriend.
Arriving from Europe by ship with the coach are a load of Italians and we all know what happens when a load of Italians arrive on the scene. They are a commedia dell’arte troupe of actors searching for success in this New World. Part of this troupe is the captivating Camilla. We know she is not shy or timid or retiring because she is Anna Magnani and Peru might’ve just quivered a little when her foot touched land.
Three men are also set quivering by Magnani’s Camilla — a toreador, a soldier and, finally, the Viceroy himself. As the troupe perform for the locals so each three vie for Camilla’s affections. Camilla loves the stage but she also craves stability so when the Viceroy offers her the golden coach she finds she can’t say no, especially as she seems to have fallen in love with it already on the voyage over (just what was she doing in there, anyway? Either way, we suspect the Viceroy might want it checked for stains).
Yet a woman should be careful when toying with the hearts of men, even if inadvertently. Sometimes a choice has to be made, but that raises an even more profound and difficult question — what does Camilla actually want?
‘The Golden Coach’ (1952) is typical early 50’s Renoir where art, life, love and the theater all argue between each other as to which is the most important and presented to us with cinematography so deliciously and colourfully edible it looks like it was baked in a patisserie rather than filmed.
This is appropriate because despite all the declarations of adoration and emotional protrusions of lust the love stories take a back seat in this coach; this isn’t a love triangle here but a single, lone point and that point is Magnani. She is torn between the differing men whom all offer differing futures with differing possibilities but this leads not to Camilla knowing what she wants but discovering who she is.
The downside to this is that until this becomes clear (something only apparent in the closing seconds of the movie) it can feel as though the love stories themselves are being somewhat under-served. Both the toreador and solider are absent for large chunks of the film, and we don’t really care about them anyway, with the main focus between Camilla and the Viceroy, a rather stuffy and pompous man but one who starts shedding his pretensions to reveal a charming, sensitive and more intelligent aristocrat than meets the eye. Yet we know this is not a relationship for the ages — he’s is sacrificing too much and she knows the score too well for fanciful illusions.
Magnani perfectly captures Camilla’s fiery yet world-weary woman, a woman not immune to flattery but able to cut through the games with a single look that shatters any man’s illusions and almost the audience’s too, even if her passionate Italianisms sometimes feel a little forced as though she’s making a specific point (“Bet you can’t do THIS, Ingrid!”).
‘The Golden Coach’ is a gorgeous, vibrant and passionate piece of work. It’s not as exhuberant as Renoir’s follow-up ‘French Cancan’ (1955), but then again what film is?
In one scene a character asks that typical Renoir question — “Where does the theater end and life begin?” Yet it’s an odd question as we are not watching life or the theater but a movie, simply light. Maybe that’s another point. Maybe the real golden coach is film itself, a glittering, dazzling vehicle capable of straddling the real and imaginary because it is permanently travelling in those two directions at once.
