Annoyingly French bourgeois nattering with strong psychological imperatives, as described here by another reviewer. But like life, amazing regards can attend the banal.
I think Rohmer shares an sense of cinema with Tarkovsky in sense of sculpting in time and Malick with his philisophical obsessions. Through wonderful economies of production, a careful camera, fortuitous locales, revealing dialog, honest actors, and acute editing, the movie becomes a fully-formed linguistic expression. In the way that we know the world through thought yet words are empty arrangements of glyphs, this era of Rohmer movies, in which he dotes on youth and l'mour, lets me review my own youth with the pleasure of desire that comes from watching lovely people, and the distance of wisdom in observation of the sexual dances which propel the human comedy through across the generations, paradoxically the most obvious and intimate modes of our existence, yet largely unbeknownst to us.
Rohmer uses the camera as both a microscope and a telescope, but never puts his subjects under glass, nor relegates them to pure puppetry. His actors accept the camera as a third party intruding upon their couples, with the hesitation appropriate of including an other who is a friend or lover they won't quite ever know, but is right there with them. This creates a fantastic metonymy of the camera to the inner eye of my self-awareness that leaves me feeling like I shared the holiday with this people.
And the lingering mood is peaceful, meditative, and fosters openness and psychic contact with the Self in the sense of the sage Sri Ramana Maharshi.
This is analog cinema which eschews gimmicks to just look at a world, yet is always delightfully contrived for its points about persona and the wandering heart.
Too bad the dude Gaspard is such a bore, with French narcissistic personality disorder. Many times in the dialog I wished he would shut up about himself. Early on his manner of relating to Margot would seem more thoughtful if he just punched her in the face. But what's perennially true and wonderful is her willingness to love him on his own terms. The balance of the sexes is revealed as this constellation of young women orbit and this malleable young man like moons to let their gravity run the tides of his heart.
Rohmer is careful to not let these dynamics become tainted with selfish regrets, by keeping the portrayal fixed in its holiday moment of time, which works on me like my own memories of love, that I was changed by forces I could not comprehend, and later came to relish the reflection in both delight and horror.
Through Rohmer's lens, I don't get the feeling I could go back and do it again better with hindsight, but only awareness of life's stages. A reflection that attends me through a bit of sweet-bitter grief.
God help you watching these movies if all you notice are self-absorbed French dorks, perseverating in a meaningless world of trite artifacts, as children who are the distant consequence of Napoleon.
I think Rohmer shares an sense of cinema with Tarkovsky in sense of sculpting in time and Malick with his philisophical obsessions. Through wonderful economies of production, a careful camera, fortuitous locales, revealing dialog, honest actors, and acute editing, the movie becomes a fully-formed linguistic expression. In the way that we know the world through thought yet words are empty arrangements of glyphs, this era of Rohmer movies, in which he dotes on youth and l'mour, lets me review my own youth with the pleasure of desire that comes from watching lovely people, and the distance of wisdom in observation of the sexual dances which propel the human comedy through across the generations, paradoxically the most obvious and intimate modes of our existence, yet largely unbeknownst to us.
Rohmer uses the camera as both a microscope and a telescope, but never puts his subjects under glass, nor relegates them to pure puppetry. His actors accept the camera as a third party intruding upon their couples, with the hesitation appropriate of including an other who is a friend or lover they won't quite ever know, but is right there with them. This creates a fantastic metonymy of the camera to the inner eye of my self-awareness that leaves me feeling like I shared the holiday with this people.
And the lingering mood is peaceful, meditative, and fosters openness and psychic contact with the Self in the sense of the sage Sri Ramana Maharshi.
This is analog cinema which eschews gimmicks to just look at a world, yet is always delightfully contrived for its points about persona and the wandering heart.
Too bad the dude Gaspard is such a bore, with French narcissistic personality disorder. Many times in the dialog I wished he would shut up about himself. Early on his manner of relating to Margot would seem more thoughtful if he just punched her in the face. But what's perennially true and wonderful is her willingness to love him on his own terms. The balance of the sexes is revealed as this constellation of young women orbit and this malleable young man like moons to let their gravity run the tides of his heart.
Rohmer is careful to not let these dynamics become tainted with selfish regrets, by keeping the portrayal fixed in its holiday moment of time, which works on me like my own memories of love, that I was changed by forces I could not comprehend, and later came to relish the reflection in both delight and horror.
Through Rohmer's lens, I don't get the feeling I could go back and do it again better with hindsight, but only awareness of life's stages. A reflection that attends me through a bit of sweet-bitter grief.
God help you watching these movies if all you notice are self-absorbed French dorks, perseverating in a meaningless world of trite artifacts, as children who are the distant consequence of Napoleon.