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Director Jean Renoir returns to the "people of the soil" of his previous Toni in People of France! (originally La Vie est a nous, or A Life for Us). Using a cast of nonprofessionals, Renoir pontificates on the dehumanization of the capitalist system. The film opens as a group of schoolchildren come across the fact that France is controlled by 200 wealthy families. As the kids put together a scrapbook detailing the lives of these movers and shakers, Renoir cuts away to the emotional damage wrought both intentionally and unintentionally by the insensitivity of the Elite. Not surprisingly, the film concludes with a rally of the French Communist Party. People of France! was in fact financed by the communists, a fact Renoir attributed to his eagerness during this period to work with anyone who espoused an anti-Nazi viewpoint (he also effectively disowned the picture, insisting that while he physically directed it, he really had nothing to do with it creatively).