Released in France as La Kermesse Heroique, Carnival in Flanders is set during the long-ago war between the Dutch and Spanish. A tiny village in Flanders is invaded by Spanish troops. The townsfolk have heard of Spanish cruelties in other towns, and decide to deflect the vanquishers by playing dead. This isn't terribly effective (you have to take a breath once in a while), so the wife of the burgomaster tries to soften up the invaders with a lavish carnival. So successful is this venture that the Spaniards allow the village to escape being decimated, or even taxed. An award-winner many times over, Carnival in Flanders was banned in Germany; evidently, Goebbels caught on that director Jacques Feyder and scenarists Bernard Zimmer and Charles Spaak were drawing deliberate parallels between the Spanish and the then-burgeoning Nazis.
The pic follows a desperate couple, who have pulled off a string of high-end break-ins to pay off a mob debt. When they attempt to rob their latest victim, they find themselves caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse where the tables are turned and the h
After the mysterious appearance of a stranger in their home, a young Black family must deal with the fallout of their choices, big and small, as a steadfast detective tries to crack the case over the course of one fateful night.
