Ennui and Self-involvement par Excellence, beautifully filmed
Written: Aug 14 '08 (Updated Aug 14 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: French ennui, Paris living, young love confusions, beautiful actresses, typical French complications
Cons: Slow, mostly conversation, flat ending, lack of action
The Bottom Line: A slow morality tale of four Parisians, well-educated, searching for connection and happiness; naturally, failing. They certainly can chew their problems to bits!
This is the first of prodigious-producer Eric Rohmer, who in his 70's started a series of four morality films, each a tale of the season. So "Conte de Printemps" is the first, with its morale rather opaque to a modern American audience. Even the hang-dog look of the father, supposed love interest of young woman, makes one feel sorry for him; in fact, it's hard to see why they would be attracted to him, and he looks older than 40 to me (Nixon-jowels...)
The basic story involves Jean, a 30-ish high school philosophy teacher, living with a boyfriend in Paris, who gets involved with an 18-year-old girl, Natasha, at a party. They start chatting; both feel bored and lonely; Natasha invites Jean home to a beautiful, bookish and very big apartment. Their conversation is flat and insipid, but the charming face and childish animation in Natasha's face kept me interested. There is no doubt that she is very attractive with her thick, long, red hair and quick smiles, beautiful in a way so few US actresses are today.
Natasha lives with her father, a 40-year-old grant administrator with property, divorced, always travelling, involved with a philosophy student half his age. Natasha is therefore mostly on her own in this lovely flat, lonely, training to be a pianist. She wants Jean's company and above all, she is scheming to get Jean into her father's life as a new love interest, to get rid of Eve, the current girlfriend.
The rest of the film shows these four dancing about the tricky questions of jealousy, attraction, hurt feelings, confusion, and that particular style of French je ne sais quoi, where characters care deeply, but drown their real feelings in a mess of words and fake indifference.
I watch this film while laid up with an rupture Achilles tendon, with an elderly man raised in Northern Italy. He often falls asleep watching DVD's with me, but throughout this one, to my surprise, he stayed awake. He thought it an excellent story about the intricacies of life and personal relationships - not to mention the wonderful scenes of Paris, its streets, the apartment interiors, and the countryside where the four go to the father's house.
For myself, I can recommend it as a good film to practice one's French: first I watched it with English subtitles, then with French. There is little action and lots of dialogue, with everyday scenes, so perfect to practice French-reading.
Most North Americans would probably find this film dull, and yes, it is in its way full of the characters' ennui. However, in the film's defense, my heart went out to all four of them, even the annoying Eve, because each one so patently wants love and attention from others, and simply cannot get what he/she wants. So as French people, they stew around and chew on it, like uncooked escargot, until finally, they just all spit out the undigested mess and give up. The film ends with a flat finality of hopelessness.
Yes still I recommend this film - you will see yourself in one or more of the characters, if you have ever struggled in your relationships (and who hasn't?)
Another detail: it appears to have been filmed in the 1980's, the time I spent living in Europe. The clothes and haircuts of the women, the high-waisted pants and bright loose-cut blouses, all reminded me of myself in those years, excitedly trying to "become European" with scarfs, short hair like Jean's, etc - clothes hard to find nowadayws in USA!
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