Renoir

More idyllic period piece than art-world biopic, this leisurely episode from the last years of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir offers up an enchanting mixture of art history; the summer of 1915; the lush countryside of the South of France; sensuality of a particularly French sort; and a glimpse or two of incipient film history. Middle Renoir son and future filmmaker Jean, home from duty in World War I while his wounds heal, gets besmitten with the brash charms of fledgling actress Andrée Heuschling, a new addition to the small host of models, maids, and female aides that populate his widowed father’s bucolic estate. The richly colored atmosphere created by director Gilles Bourdos and cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee takes precedence over the big dramas occurring just off screen and leaves us quite content to hang out with the Renoirs in a Renoir movie that seems inspired by the elder Renoir’s paintings. Pageant Theatre. Rated R.