A_Different_Drummer Review of Claire's Knee

Claire's Knee (1970)

the film that created a whole new class of fetish...

[9/10 · 19 November 2013]

First, some ground rules. You can compare, for example, Japanese films to Chinese films to Korean films to Thai films and, by and large, you will find more in common than different. Ditto for US, Canadian, British, etc. But when when you get to French films, my friend, the rulebook goes out the window. These are the people who, lest we forget, brought us some of the greatest philosophers in history, so, drinking espresso and asking how many angels can dance on the head of pin is pretty much genetic. (This observation also explains the dilemma of Quebec separatism, ie, there is more interest in debating it, than in actually doing it, but I digress.) Which brings us to the (arguably) most successful work of moralist Eric Rohmer, the drenched-in-voice-over Claire's Knee. (Which title BTW has a lot more class in French, "Le genou de Claire", it flows trippingly off the tongue). The story? What story? A no-longer-in-his-20s-but-still-in-the-game diplomat is off visiting a friend in what could easily pass for Narnia (the French are always visiting or celebrating or eating, in these sort of films) where, via the above-mentioned voice-over, he is debating the essential nature of men and women. Just when you thought this was so boring you would have to slit your throat with an unpopped kernel of corn, the film livens up with the arrival of someone's teenage daughter, named, coincidentally, Claire. She is beautiful but, typical of French films, she is innocently unaware of the effect she has on men (see AND GOD CREATED WOMAN to watch this very "French" theme taken to absurd lengths -- the film that launched Bardot.) While the women in the group discuss the girl's "figure" like they were looking to buy cattle, our hero makes the fatal error of getting too close to her knee while she is on a ladder above his eye level. I wish I could tell you more about the plot but that is pretty much it. To satisfy his newfound craving, he spends the rest of the film trying to simply touch that same knee, much the same way an ex-smoker will go after nicotine gum if they can't get the real thing. This is actually a nice little film and, as advertised, Rohmer's best. Depending on your country of origin, and your own opinion as to how many angels can actually dance on the head of a pin, you are either going to love it or hate it.