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4.0 out of 5 stars
Two Shorts Make Four Stars, January 25, 2001
This review is from: Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery (DVD)
This DVD encompasses the first two (short) films in Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales series (there are four other films in the series, for a total of six -- the rest are feature length films). In the first short, The Girl at the Monceau Bakery, a young man spots an attractive girl who is often seen walking by, and decides he will pursue her. His interest in her grows after he gets up the courage to talk to her one day. Suddenly, though, she goes missing from the streets of Paris. As the protagonist walks in search of his infatuation, he begins making habitual stops at a nearby bakery. After a few visits, he begins to notice the young girl working at the bakery, and decides she is pretty. He arrogantly decides he will flirt with her, even ask her out, as an alternate to his lonely searching for the other woman. From the voice-over, it is clear he wants nothing to do with her, at least in the end, but he continues his flirtation. When the Bakery Girl finally agrees to a date, the original woman re-appears, complete with an explanation of why she'd been missing the weeks before. Our young protagonist must then decide whether to go through with the date, or turn his attentions entirely to the first woman. This is an interesting short to watch, but you may find yourself with some questions when it ends. I found it somewhat dated/simplisitic in its treatment of women and dating/relationships. The second film is much longer, and concerns two young men who meet a pretty young girl in a cafe (Suzanne). As the two get to know Suzanne, they begin to take her affection and generosity for granted. The protagonist's quiet dislike for her grows the more generous she becomes. He doesn't understand why she would let herself be 'treated' so badly, and assumes she is merely a passive woman who doesn't stand up for herself. Blindsided by their own arrogance, the two men fail to see that Suzanne may be holding some cards of her own. She may in fact be in complete control of her 'situation,' and living exactly the way she wants to, just 'like a man.' I liked this film more than the first one, and found myself cheering for Suzanne. The end brought a smile to my face. The director (Rohmer) is fascinated with the beginning/early stages of relationships, and the choices that are made at that point. Serving as a sort of match-maker for his characters, he foresees One Suitable Mate for his Protagonist, and Only One. However, since he does not always make clear what is driving the Protagonist's choices, we are often left not really knowing the reasons for the Protagonist's depth of feeling (or lack thereof), and how he can be sure that his decision is the Right one. For example, at the end of the first film, the protagonist abruptly decides which of the two women will be best-suited for him for life (marriage). Yet we aren't shown any information about her but her appearance. Is the protagonist so shallow, or is more going on here that I missed? As the FIN abruptly burns onto the screen, you may find yourself sitting for a moment or two, with question-marks in your eyes, in wonder and confusion at the follies of love. The DVD itself, while it presented no problem, was nothing special. As with the other films in the series, the subtitles were burned into the film itself, and so could not be removed. In Black & White. French Soundtrack and English subtitles. 3 1/2 to 4 stars.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A master begins his great theme and variations, April 2, 2010
This review is from: Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery (DVD)
THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU (1963), the first of Eric Rohmer's "6 Moral Tales", runs only a bit over 20 minutes, but it manages to pack plenty of depth in that short time frame. The seeds of the future films in the series are already in place: a self-absorbed though basically decent young man falls in love with a young woman from afar, complications ensue, the man makes a decision believing smugly that he's doing the right thing for all, the audience is left to ponder.
Here the nameless young man - played by inveterate New Wave presence Barbet Schroeder but dubbed and narrated by Bertrand Tavernier - falls for a stylish and model-gorgeous young woman named Sylvie. He tries desperately to meet her and with the help of a friend manages to bump into her and get a promise for a coffee at some point in the near future. But she vanishes, and as he haunts the area in which he has seen her, he starts to go to the same bakery every day for a cookie, and eventually befriends the young clerk there, Jacqueline. He tells himself that he's not attracted to her, that she is more or less beneath him - but he's also convinced that she's attracted to him. Eventually he pushes himself on her rather aggressively and she accepts his invitation for a date...and then fate intervenes.
This had much the feel of a Henry James story to me - if Henry James ever were as "light" and brief as Rohmer is here. The self-absorbed man is incapable of really understanding or feeling how his actions might impact others, and has an answer for any indiscretion or thoughtless behavior; even at the end when he seems to have gotten his heart's desire, we have to wonder if he's learned anything. Very cheaply and quickly shot on grainy 16 mm in black and white, this has an immediacy and simplicity that helps to concentrate the simple story and make it seem a bit more than it actually is. A nice beginning.
SUZANNE'S CAREER, the 2nd in the series, is a short (just under an hour) feature from the same year, like the previous film not theatrically released at the time, and also post-dubbed and cheaply shot in 16mm black and white. The actors are mostly non-professionals and occasionally the lack of experience shows, but the feel of Paris and youth and excitement rings through regardless of the "amateurishness" on display. Though the basic storyline is again fairly simple, this is an altogether darker and more cynical tale, and it's narrator is left at least a little bit shaken up and disabused of some of his notions of self over the course of the several weeks of a Parisian winter that transpire.
Bertrand, the narrator, is a shy and introspective young man who is very much attracted to the gorgeous Sophie, with whom he feels he has little chance; he makes friends early on in the film with Suzanne, a less conventionally attractive but quite outgoing young woman who is also acquainted with Sophie, and he seems a bit taken with her - but then his best friend, Guillaume, who has a huge and deserved reputation as a player, steps in and starts to romance Suzanne. Bertrand quickly dismisses her as someone no more worth his efforts than she is Guillaume's; at one point he points out that his friend only chooses for his conquests women who are beneath him - perhaps his own way of suggesting that he doesn't feel bad that he's not as lucky in love as Guillaume.
But he keeps running into Suzanne, and her relationship with Guillaume is quickly strained. At one point the two men decide to take advantage of Suzanne and bleed her dry of money over a couple of days - but she seems not to mind at first. Suzanne remains as enigmatic as the narrator throughout and it seems inevitable that the two of them will eventually connect in some way through their frustrations - but they don't. As in the earlier tale, Bertrand eventually finds himself able to spend more time with the woman he's really attracted to - but in this case, it's unclear whether it will blossom into anything, and Suzanne, finally left by both Guillaume and Bertrand, finds love and happiness elsewhere, leaving our narrator to ponder whether in fact he's been going about it all wrong.
This is a rather harsher take on the foibles of modern love and dating, with none of the four principals coming off all that well save perhaps Sophie - and she's the least developed. Bertrand supports and defends his buddy though he knows deep down that Guillaume is just using women and is a scoundrel - but whether this is because Bertrand idolizes his friend for achieving something he can't, or that he feels a moral superiority to the lying ladies' man, we can't ever know for sure. Suzanne seems a bit more honest in her dealings with the men, to their faces, but perhaps not to herself; and Sophie, secure in her desirability, remains aloof and away from most of the drama. It's at heart a rather tough and steely-eyed little film that compares interestingly to films like Agnés Varda's LE BONHEUR (1965) or Jean-Luc Godard's MASCULIN FEMININ (1966) in its very unromantic view of romance amongst the youth of mid-60s France. A little less "charming" than the Rohmer many have come to know and love, but no less penetrating and insightful.
The Fox Lorber DVD is certainly watchable enough; if you're interested in the whole set of "tales", go with the more expensive but much better Criterion box set.
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