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Rating: Last Christmas my boyfriend (obviously at my subtle request... female psychology!) gifted me a precious box set of films by Eric Rohmer, a French director and, along with Godard and Truffaut (a complex fatherhood), one of the fathers of the nouvelle vague of the '60s. I was thrilled with the gift found under the Presepe (I like o' Presepe!) when, a few days later, I learned about the death of the octogenarian master, which saddened me to the point of postponing, with a hint of regret, the viewing of these films to happier times.
Those happier times came this summer. I should note that, after watching some of Rohmer's films, I intended to see if, on DeBaser, the work of such an interesting author had been discussed and reviewed with the usual care, only to be quite disappointed when I realized that as of (31.8.2010), out of a total of 27,325 reviews, there were 0 reviews dedicated to Rohmer, representing a quota of 0.0% of the total (I won’t even mention how many reviews are dedicated to various junk!). Disappointment and dismay, besides the moral obligation to fill this grave omission.
I fill it by reviewing what I consider to be one of the most beautiful films of the French director, "My Night with Maud" ('69), which was also acclaimed at Cannes, nominated for the Oscars, and enjoyed moderate public success, something that did not always happen for Rohmer despite the high quality of his works, intellectualistic yes, but with particular lightness and grace.
A film that probably serves as a model for much cinema to come, especially French, urging you to observe how Kieslowski (the one, even though blasphemous, of “The Decalogue”) is, for example, an apocryphal pupil of Rohmer, especially in the atmospheres of this film and other feature films of the so-called "moral tales."
Let's start with the plot, which holds so much importance in a highly "scripted" film based essentially on dialogues in enclosed settings like this one: Jean Louis, played by the handsome Jean Louis Trintignant (the one from "The Easy Life" and "The Sunday Woman", as well as the late Kieslowski’s "Red"), is a young observant Catholic engineer who recently moved to the town of Clermont-Ferrand, in the heart of rural France. Going to mass, he notices among those present the young Françoise (the graceful Marie Christine Barrault), being struck by her almost angelic charm (blonde, thin, elegant) and resolves to win her over and marry her, believing that the woman, whom he does not actually know beyond these fleeting impressions and a presumed conformity of values, is his ideal, earthly perfection made manifest.
In the meantime, Jean Louis meets his friend Vidal, a Marxist intellectual in crisis, who invites him to dinner at the house of his occasional girlfriend, the young and sensual Maud (masterfully played by the alluring Françoise Fabian).
Maud, freshly divorced from a husband who cheated on her, and whom she reciprocally cheated on, is the antithesis of Françoise, and the model of woman Jean Louis aspires to: free, libertine in thought even before in behavior, unconventional in reasoning more than in behavior, Maud is a woman who enjoys listening to her interlocutor, uncovering the contradictions in his reasoning, the mystifications and self-delusions, the false beliefs, not only from a religious standpoint but also morally. She does not seem to bear her own truth, other than the truth found in dialogue and the word itself: one might say a Socratic character, secular in opposition to Jean Louis's rigid Catholicism, as if classical Greek thought collides with Catholic-Roman ideology.
Between these opposites sparks fly, even though, staying at Maud's house for the whole night and ending up sleeping in her bed, Jean Louis will not have any sexual relations with her, nor will he give in to the woman's seductions, as he remains faithful to his ethical and aesthetic ideals, destined to prevail over carnality and the ephemeral. After that night, between the two there will rather be an affectionate friendship culminating in a tender kiss during a snow trip, without, however, distracting Jean Louis from his plan and obsession: to seduce and marry Françoise, which, in fact, he manages to do.
Five years later, Jean Louis and his wife, now parents to a child, are on a seaside trip. Here they meet a still free Maud, albeit slightly melancholic and apparently aged. A fleeting look between the two women reveals a truth unknown to Jean Louis, enough to shake some of his convictions (and, with them, those of the viewer). But a different interpretation of things, and possible truths, perhaps demands a price no one is willing to pay.
Rohmer stages a film of feelings, and philosophical dialogues set in Blaise Pascal's hometown, comparing different human types and kinds of thought, identified not only in Maud and Jean Louis but also in the supporting characters, from his friend Vidal to the young Françoise.
The heart of the action is Jean Louis, with whom, however, we are not led to sympathize, as he claims to be a bearer of a Truth, moral and religious, that he does not actually demonstrate following, resulting, in certain aspects, hypocritical and unresolved. The hypocrisy lies not only in his sentimental conduct, where he forces himself to love a person he does not know while simultaneously flirting with a woman he desires, perhaps, because he is attracted to what he identifies as the opposite, but upon which a negative and Pharisaic moral judgement transpires.
Next to him stands the verbose, mischievous, and provocative Maud, a more multifaceted and complex character than the identification with Jean Louis might lead the viewer to believe: I certainly don't want to anticipate the film’s content, but Fabian is superb in the play of glances, and especially in the moment when the woman's eyes lose themselves in the void of the most painful memories, playing on ellipses, absences, and unsaid things that only in the final part of the feature film find their place, and, even if partial, explanation.
Entirely different, the opposite of Maud, is the silent, ethereal, and contemplative Françoise, subject of the protagonist's will (more than desire) who loves, concealing herself and her sentiments, letting the "unsaid" - sporadic even in Maud herself - be the expressive code of the character, up to the final, crucial moments of the film, in which the words and the unlayering of the woman to her suitor explain what glance, observation, expectations cannot discover.
A game that cannot help but enchant us, in conclusion, siding now with one, now with the other of the protagonists, and following Rohmer into a representation that seems the quintessence of French cinema, at least as we understand it according to tradition: clear and tight dialogues, interiors set in real and everyday spaces, natural lights, varying according to the climate and here exalted by a black and white that highlights both the snow and the darkness of the winter streets of Clermont, or the purity of summer beaches.
No musical commentary, but a counterpoint of the narrating voice - Jean Louis himself - who programmatically states he does "not want to say everything" about his own life, and that of other characters, as if the unsaid, the unspoken, the hidden, if not denied, is the "secret" that preserves the intimate, inaccessible essence of each person.
A film I recommend to the most sensitive viewers, even if I do not feel like elevating Maud, Jean Louis, and Françoise to a role model, and to adhere to their ethics, at times flaky and certainly inconsistent with the religious values that the characters uphold.
Maud certainly stands apart, a figure diametrically opposed to me and my values, who remains etched in our minds and hearts for the intimate melancholy with which she accepts error, deviation, the transience of things, desiring an unattainable infinite and revealing, with this, the real condition of (almost) all human beings.
People who gamble on the infinite without even saying so, and perhaps lose, like Maud in Pascal's land.
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