Like the folk-art painter Grandma Moses, Nouveau Vague director Éric Rohmer produced in batches. There were Six Contes Moraux (six moral tales); Comedies et Proverbs; and this is one of his ‘Four Seasons.’ But unlike Grandma Moses, who was primitive/naive, Rohmer was worldly & sophisticated, even in comparison to his fellow Vaguers; an acquired taste not everyone acquires. This typically talky/philosophical look at love found/love lost follows Félicie, a young woman who found and lost her perfect match on holiday five years ago when she met Charles. But a bad address kept the pair (plus an ensuing child, now five) permanently separated. Back in Paris, she’s courted by two men now in her life, Maxence, a hair dresser about to open a salon in Nevers, and Loic, a literary bookshop owner staying in Paris. Both men aware of her past affair and the child’s parentage, but they’ll take the chance. What are the odds of his reappearance? She probably wouldn’t admit it, but she’s been trying them on for size. And things might never have come to a head had she not been able to clarify her thoughts while watching a production of Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’S TALE with its climatic scene of a dead wife returning to life in front of her family. That, and a commuter bus change everything. One of Rohmer’s best, there’s an enchantment to the series of events and personal revelations. Félicie proving difficult to know, difficult to hold, rather less difficult to love. The film, masterfully simple and complex at one and the same time. It’s also beautiful to look at, with shot choices out of some unwritten textbook on how to shoot and edit conversations. (It’s what Richard Linklater kept getting further away from in his much admired BEFORE SUNRISE trilogy/‘95; ‘04; ‘13.)
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Our personal Rohmer favorite, FULL MOON IN PARIS/’84. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/09/les-nuits-de-la-pleine-lune-full-moon.html
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