esrosedotblog

KNEEDY

Today's movie was LE GENOU DE CLAIRE (CLAIRE'S KNEE) (1970). This Eric Rohmer talker is one of the series of 4 (?) 'moral tales'. We will see CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON in a day or two. MY NIGHT AT MAUDS will come, of course, with the "m's". I will let Ebert tell you about this one. His reaction is a pretty good matchup for mine. It is rather Humbert Humbert/Lolita but I don't think we are supposed to think that.

Rohmer has his admirers. This film made the NYTimes 1176Best Films list. I enjoyed it. I trimmed my expectations almost immediately when I got that there was going to be a lot of two heads talking. That is not a bad thing. It is beautifully done. But there is no plot and little action. The most energy on the screen will be a volley ball game and one mostly shirtless young man who is Claire's actual suitor Gilles.

This is not my first Rohmer film but his work is evanescent. For a good rundown of the pros and cons take a look at the IMDb writeup on Rohmer. He inspired the line by Gene Hackman in NIGHT MOVES: "I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry." The line itself is now a standard for anything that is, well, sloooooooow.

I liked the interplay of the 'hero's' talk and the real world action around him. He is wrong about almost all his assumptions. There is a lot of old/young stuff. He is way old before his time. And so on. It sure has my thinking about it.

I will give it a Netflix4 out of 5.