My Night at Maud's is a "talky" film, though like the main character of Jean-Louis in going after the woman to marry this actually is a perception that is on face-value a little demeaning. This is such a rich screenplay because it takes its characters seriously and honestly, and there's nothing cheating in dealing with characters who have problems in confronting how to approach emotional contact, of using religion as a guise, or trying to follow a 'code of conduct' (as one French critic called it on the Criterion DVD of the film) that leads into a complex and troubling end. Even more-so than Love in the Afternoon, this is a work where the male perspective must have the counterpoint of a woman who is much more vibrant and life-affirming by not being connected to a kind of constricting religious ideology that can't really lead to anywhere aside from compromise. Jean-Louis is such a man who sees blonde Francoise (Stardust Memories' Barrault) riding on a motorcycle and decides right then that she will be the one he will marry. His is an idealized love where despite saying that he's been in love and relationships before he has not had to really make a leap into a consequential decision.
The philosophical arguments involved with Jean-Louis, Francoise and even with Maud, of whom Jean-Louis has a pensive and indecisive fling over the course of 24 hours, can last for quite a while after film's end, which is a major credit to Rohmer in making these characters real within the specific contexts. They may be bourgeois, or close to it, but the concerns of the characters are universal: How does one make a leap from emotional experience to belief. Or on the flip-side how does one who probably doesn't have any belief either way (watch Francoise's eyes when she goes with Jean-Louis to church, it's an exceptionally subtly acted scene) and has to fall into a kind of false love, where because she already knows of the image that Jean-Louis already has of her before she says a word that she has to continue it, marry him, have a child, and live with his own moral insecurities? The ending may seem clean-cut, but it's a lot more complex as a sort of continuing cycle. Marriages are formed and bonds made between people all the time when there is no love, but what might be a reason? This isn't Rohmer's central point perhaps, but it's an intelligent posit that is right there in Rohmer's character study.
And all the while, through Rohmer's simple direction- the only big stylistic choice, perhaps important in the Bergman sense, is the use of the landscape of winter and the mainstream conformity of Christmas- he gets great performances from his actors, as if in a play all working towards the cores of the character in order that all of the at-times heavy dialog comes off in a fairly approachable light. Rarely will you get Pascal and romance thrown together into a conversation, but it works in this case, and for someone who's only known Pascal from a triangle it's enlightening to see how moral choice, of probability and chance, come out in ways that leap from one place to another but always coherently in the scenes at Maud's apartment. There's a good deal under the surface that comes out little by little, and if one can give in to the rhythm of Rohmer's characters the rewards are just as satisfying as with other more flamboyant works by Rohmer's contemporaries. It may not be Jules and Jim, but in its own disquieting way it's just as powerful in the implications drawn from the characters, particularly long after the film ends. A+
The philosophical arguments involved with Jean-Louis, Francoise and even with Maud, of whom Jean-Louis has a pensive and indecisive fling over the course of 24 hours, can last for quite a while after film's end, which is a major credit to Rohmer in making these characters real within the specific contexts. They may be bourgeois, or close to it, but the concerns of the characters are universal: How does one make a leap from emotional experience to belief. Or on the flip-side how does one who probably doesn't have any belief either way (watch Francoise's eyes when she goes with Jean-Louis to church, it's an exceptionally subtly acted scene) and has to fall into a kind of false love, where because she already knows of the image that Jean-Louis already has of her before she says a word that she has to continue it, marry him, have a child, and live with his own moral insecurities? The ending may seem clean-cut, but it's a lot more complex as a sort of continuing cycle. Marriages are formed and bonds made between people all the time when there is no love, but what might be a reason? This isn't Rohmer's central point perhaps, but it's an intelligent posit that is right there in Rohmer's character study.
And all the while, through Rohmer's simple direction- the only big stylistic choice, perhaps important in the Bergman sense, is the use of the landscape of winter and the mainstream conformity of Christmas- he gets great performances from his actors, as if in a play all working towards the cores of the character in order that all of the at-times heavy dialog comes off in a fairly approachable light. Rarely will you get Pascal and romance thrown together into a conversation, but it works in this case, and for someone who's only known Pascal from a triangle it's enlightening to see how moral choice, of probability and chance, come out in ways that leap from one place to another but always coherently in the scenes at Maud's apartment. There's a good deal under the surface that comes out little by little, and if one can give in to the rhythm of Rohmer's characters the rewards are just as satisfying as with other more flamboyant works by Rohmer's contemporaries. It may not be Jules and Jim, but in its own disquieting way it's just as powerful in the implications drawn from the characters, particularly long after the film ends. A+