Full Moon in Paris

The oldest filmmaker of the New Wave guard was also the most politically conservative and the most conservative when it came to films. While others focused more on film, Rohmer was more theatrical - all of his films that I have seen so far were built on the foundations of intelligent and internally elaborate dialogues, which, along with very subtle changes in character behavior, push the plot forward. The film form always takes a back seat. Even in this film, if there were just a few more ellipses during transitions from one apartment (set) to another, one could instead speak of a theatrical production than a film in all its aspects. Moreover, this conservatism has another aspect - Rohmer's stories are timeless in certain ways. Their plots could take place at any time, and they explore human relationships more from within than from the outside (but, of course, it cannot be said that the exterior is not reflected at all because the demeanor of the female protagonist of this film would still have been shocking a quarter of a century ago). In any case, nothing other than the search for timelessness in human behavior can result from the transposition of old folk proverbs to the 20th century... In summary, those who seek a detailed portrayal of nuances of the human psyche will get a multi-layered and clever "film," while those who seek a film without quotation marks will tend to get a multi-layered and clever film production. (23/02/2015)