Renoir's take on the horror film is high-minded and tense, as innovative as you'd assume considering the film's creator who here is seen utilizing a playful score, dynamic editing, and oppressive lighting in order to overthrow the audience's expectations. This is Renoir's world, and we're only able to observe, knowing that someone as forceful as him will not kowtow to other people's standards.
Hands down my favorite Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adaptation, Renoir seems to capitalize on Barrault's graceful fluidity as the calculating Cordelier and the abomination that is Opale, often setting Opale against light backgrounds in order to contrast his dark clothing and intentions. The last quarter of the film builds in tension, catapulting the curious Joly into strange 
crevices of the doctor's experiments, uncovering the catalyst of all the demonic events within the film, which results in the stripping away of the layers of sophistication and altruism from Cordelier, leaving him a monster unable to quench its abominable thirst for perversion.
Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier is available in a three-disc collection along with six other Renoir films and a documentary hosted by Martin Scorsese, for little over twenty American dollars. Including two of his silent features, this collection is one of the best bargains a fan of foreign films can get, and I highly recommend it.
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