The Stavisky scandals were the S&L-gate of 1930s France. Resnais's film is about the downfall of a grandiose swindler, Alexandre Stavisky, and of an even grander swindle, the “tout va bien” image of prewar Europe as it rotted within. A financial pirate and theatrical entrepreneur, Stavisky manipulated both the surface frivolity and the government corruption. As a closing act, he flooded France with fake vouchers, which closed the banks, started riots and brought down the government. But Stavisky... is no biography; rather, it’s a delicately structured meditation on the past and on the fragility of beauty and time.