"Men are cowardly lions and women are cunning minxes," is how film critic Jamie Russell describes the theme in Jacques Feyder's December 1935 classic, "Carnival in Flanders." The film's core plot had struck a sensitive nerve with the male members of theater audiences while women rejoiced at what they felt was so obvious. The French film is one of the earliest movies to demonstrate the superiority of a group of women over men when it comes down to saving an entire community from wholesale ruination.
French director Feyder is largely unknown to today's cinephiles, partly because World War Two disrupted an upward trajectory in his film career and had died three years after its conclusion. His contemporary, Rene Clair, lamented "Jacques Feyder does not occupy today the place his work and his example should have earned him." The Belgian actor turned scriptwriter and director was in the forefront of silent movies' poetic realism movement as early as 1916, creating such standouts as 1926 "Carmen" before receiving an invite from MGM to direct Greta Garbo's final silent, 1929's "The Kiss." After four years in Hollywood where Feyder was relegated to directing French versions of English-language releases, he returned to Europe where his most popular and highly-regarded film was "Carnival in Flanders," a work he's most known for.
After directing the somber 1935 dramatic film 1935's 'Pension Mimosas,' Feyder wanted a change in pace in tackling a light-hearted subject. His regular scriptwriter, Charles Spaak, suggested a story from 17th century Flanders under Spanish occupation. Excited with the prospect, Feyder proposed framing his farce in the aura of classical Flemish painters' art so revered in his native Belgium. Writer Spaak fulfilled his request, showing how the pompous male city officials wilted at the first sight of a Spanish official with his army arriving in the city to spend the evening. With imaginary visions of rape and pillage, the mayor and his council members feigned death upon the Spaniards' arrival. The women, however, found the men's strategy ridiculous. Since the city happened to be celebrating a carnival, they welcomed the army with open arms, melting the Spanish soldiers' hearts instantaneously.
"Farce can be incredibly painful," writes film reviewer Mark Frost, "but 'Carnival in Flanders' handles the comedic situations with finesse-with many laughs-out-loud moments." The international film community embraced Feyder's film, earning a handful of prestigious honors, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. But filmgoers in Feyder's native country were incensed by his motion picture. Fist fights broke out in movie houses showing 'Carnival in Flanders" across Antwerp and Ghent, with the city of Bruges outright banning the film. Viewers drew parallels of its plot with the Belgians' acceptance of German soldiers in their cities and towns during World War One. Simultaneously released in both French and German languages, Berliners applauded its message. Ironically, when Germany kicked off World War Two in 1939, the head of the Nazi propaganda office, Joseph Goebbels, prohibited "Carnival in Flanders" from being shown. Reportedly he was sensitive to the comparisons between the Reich's soldiers occupying foreign cities with those seen in 1600's Flanders. Feyder became a pariah to the Nazis when they overran France in 1940, forcing the director to flee to Switzerland for the duration of the war.
