The sublime films of Eric Rohmer

Last week, courtesy of The Criterion Channel, I reacquainted myself with a couple of the films of French New Wave auteur Eric Rohmer. Virtually all the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) directors – Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, etc. - are great, each in their own way. Rohmer has a special place in my heart because of his slow, studied – almost analytical – dissections of human relationships. I find his films totally absorbing. I caught two films, Love in the Afternoon from 1972 and The Green Ray from 1986. The first is from his “Moral Tales” series of six films. The second from his “Comedies and Proverbs” series. Love in the Afternoon stars Zouzou (photo above), one the 1960s pop icons whose friends and lovers included George Harrison, Brian Jones and Bob Dylan. She stars as Chloé, who shows up one day and seeks to seduce an old friend, Frédéric (Bernard Verley), who is married. The film incrementally takes us through a growing intimacy between the two, during afternoon coffees, walks in the park and shopping trips. Frédéric is beguiled but also committed to his wife. The film turns on his drawn-out moral dilemma, depicted as a slow dance with temptation, and we can almost see the gears turning in the character’s perplexed but entranced mind. The next film was The Green Ray. The plot is built around one woman, Delphine’s (Marie Rivière) desire for perfection. Who else would make a film about a woman’s desire to find the perfect vacation? But after being dumped out of a female friend’s travel plans, Delphine is forced to find an alternative to spend the French holiday month of August. She’s continually frustrated, annoyed and dismayed at the offerings made by relatives and friends. And when she does choose a destination, her encounters end up being vapid and unsatisfactory. Bear in mind the dialogue was basically made up by the characters during the shoot. Does this all this seem like watching paint dry, as once dismissed by Gene Hackman's character in the 1975 film Night Moves? If you’re interested in psychology and the subtleties of how the mind works – not to mention romance and how men and women interact – every stroke of that paint is endlessly fascinating.