'Lotte hatt blaue Augen'

A.O. Scott gets it:

Jean Renoir is often described as one of the great humanists of world cinema. That’s a word that has an implication of high minded abstract maybe soft-headed sentimentality: “underneath it all we’re all the same and why can’t we just get along?” But...Renoir was not really motivated by abstract concerns about humanity...he was motivated above all by curiosity about and sympathy for his characters, by an interest in people. The film abounds in so many moments of humour of warmth, of sensuality, of surprise that make you realise that anything more abstract is really an illusion.