How does Rohmer get away with it? I don't just mean making the films, but how do they get to become regarded as classics? This film has nothing meaningful to say about anything whatsoever. Not only do these characters not exist within your life; they don't exist anywhere. As often with French films the word 'love' becomes interchangeable with passion or just simply fancying someone to the point where it becomes pointless even using the term.
Brialy's lead 'performance' as Jerome comes across as if Rohmer simply shouted the lines out to him before he said 'action'. I know it's the 70's but please! Jerome's sub Jason King wardrobe with a full beard! And were supposed to believe he is attractive to so many women, including the beautiful 16 year old school girl Laura (Romand gives the only interesting performance despite the material she's given to work with). The pacing is so poor, it makes Manos: The Hand of Fate seem like Hard-Boiled.
At one point, I started to deliberately sit in an awkward position to see if my ulcer would start playing up as a way of introducing some tension and drama into the experience. Rohmer's indifference to his audience is summed up by the scene where Brialy relates in detail to his author friend Aurora (Cornu who seems to think she's acting in a kids TV programme) all the events that we have just seen IN DETAIL in the last bloody scene.
If you passed a camera, some film stock, a couple of lights, a tape recorder and a pen and paper to the next 7 people who passed your door (even if they were an old woman with a shopping basket, 2 four year old boys, a tramp, your mum, the wag man and an escaped convict) and gave them two weeks to knock something together. They would still come back with something more interesting, engaging and most importantly more meaningful than this.
Cinematography was pleasant.
Brialy's lead 'performance' as Jerome comes across as if Rohmer simply shouted the lines out to him before he said 'action'. I know it's the 70's but please! Jerome's sub Jason King wardrobe with a full beard! And were supposed to believe he is attractive to so many women, including the beautiful 16 year old school girl Laura (Romand gives the only interesting performance despite the material she's given to work with). The pacing is so poor, it makes Manos: The Hand of Fate seem like Hard-Boiled.
At one point, I started to deliberately sit in an awkward position to see if my ulcer would start playing up as a way of introducing some tension and drama into the experience. Rohmer's indifference to his audience is summed up by the scene where Brialy relates in detail to his author friend Aurora (Cornu who seems to think she's acting in a kids TV programme) all the events that we have just seen IN DETAIL in the last bloody scene.
If you passed a camera, some film stock, a couple of lights, a tape recorder and a pen and paper to the next 7 people who passed your door (even if they were an old woman with a shopping basket, 2 four year old boys, a tramp, your mum, the wag man and an escaped convict) and gave them two weeks to knock something together. They would still come back with something more interesting, engaging and most importantly more meaningful than this.
Cinematography was pleasant.
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