Hitchcoc
As the young protagonist, a Catholic with a precise set of morals, jousts with his friend about Pascal and his belief that we must embrace religion because it's the safest course, we see what I would call a failure to meet life head on. I never found this guy an attractive character because he was so caught up in his righteousness. When he meets Maude, who could have been a wonderful addition to his life, he is so full of "morality" that he passes her by. One can be dead without the physical act of dying. Apparently, the women he encountered in the past grew tired of his sense of perfection. Maude does everything to entice him and he ends up in an embrace that he rejects. At that moment his very sterility is exposed. He has the hots for a pretty young woman who goes to his church, Francoise, whom he pretty much stalks. She is right for him. She is pretty but also quite dull. Rohmer shows us he one can win in some respects but ultimately lose.
Scarecrow-88
During the Christmas Holidays, a Catholic (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is eyeing to romance a lovely young blonde (Marie-Christine Berrault), but a chance meeting with an old Marxist friend (Antoine Vitez) leads to his pleasant and enlightening visit with Maud (Françoise Fabian), resulting in possible fireworks.I could provide florid descriptions of the film, but I will get to the brass tacks…this is about people discussing Christianity/Catholicism during a holiday where its presence is most felt (except Easter). This is my first Rohmer film, but I think I get an idea of what his work aims towards: adults discussing themes that are important to him, using characters in a particular setting(s), at particular times, to advance their beliefs, philosophies, interpretations, outlooks, and overall views on love, life, the past, present, and future. What do they hope to find? What is their hearts set on? Why are they who they are? What brought them to where they are and what do they hope is waiting on them? In the case of "…Maud's", Trintignant's Jean-Louis is lonely, does engineering work that doesn't necessarily fill the void in his life so desired, and devoutly declares his reasons for being Catholic but doesn't necessarily disavow the lives and beliefs of others; in this film's case, Fabian's Maud, and her soon-to-be-ditched boyfriend, Vidal (Vitez). A running, driving force in the conversations between Jean-Louis and Vidal is Pascal, his views on mathematics and philosophy. Jean-Louis reads from Pascal's work from the perspective of a Catholic while Vidal sees other sides considering he's a "lapsed Catholic" who doesn't adhere to the moral/religious principles so discerned from this form of faith. At any rate, Maud is non-Catholic, too, and her liberality is rather seductive to Jean-Louis. I see Maud as someone perhaps very seductive to any form of religion that requires the sacrifice of sexual freedom. She isn't a harpy, but a woman unbound to following a code of ethics important in the case of Jean-Louis. He's looking for a particular character-type, a certain kind of woman to marry, and while Maud is an attractive, captivating, alluring, aggressive, challenging, care-free alternative to what Jean-Louis desires, she simply doesn't model after what he sees as his potential mate.Look, this is dialogue heavy and concerns itself with people talking a lot. I just want to clear that up right away. Stay far away from this as possible if you don't want to watch a Catholic stick up for why he is devout, but credit to Rohmer for allowing him to not be so staunch and abrasively card-carrying that Jean-Louis becomes too distanced from the intellectual, atheistic part of the audience certain to be bothered and uncomfortable with a film that is Pro-Catholic. Setting the film around Christmas gives the film a nice backdrop (cold, gray in the film's whiter than white B&W photography in Clermont) even if two of the four main characters aren't conducive to its general direction towards celebrating the recognition of Christ in the holiday. Maud is refreshing as is Jean-Louis, because their conversations are civil, engaging, intelligent, and non-combative. Maud listens to Jean-Louis, and vice versa. That is also the case with Jean-Louis and Vidal…despite their differences; the two have good rapport and respect each other. I think that is why the film has been so lasting and heralded. It is about the way people engage and communicate. The methods behind how close or far away to approach one another.The celebrated "night" of the film, where Maud and Jean-Louis are alone, in her bed, with a decision to make (sex or no sex?) is fascinating because the woman is open for a possible embrace, but the man has to determine if this course is worth taking. Their talk has this aura of desire behind it I liked to see develop…too often it is so much more about attraction than how words can lead two people to connection. Interestingly, I found the later coupling of Jean-Louis and Françoise rather compatible but less compelling as Catholicism leads them together, but that hanging question of "what might have been?" resurfaces when he meets Maud in passing. Either way, Jean-Louis charted his course towards Françoise, but chance (a theme I read Rohmer emphasizes in his work a lot) led him to Maud and Vidal.
flasuss
The first Rohmer i saw, and justifies his reputation of slow pacing and almost non-stop dialogue, but also his fame as a great director. He does not have anything of the joviality of his Nouvelle Vague friends Truffaut and Godard, which work i know better, being more serious and mature. The picture is filmed almost as a documentary, being very realistic, and in opposite of 99% of the movies, Rohmer doesn't move the camera all around in the dialogues, abusing of shots and reverse-shots, keeping the camera in one character. The many and long conversations are very intelligent, and all the characters are complex and interesting, specially the Jean-Louis Trignant' one, which reminded me of Prince Míchkin from The Idiot, because of the Christian quietness (Dostoiveski's words) that both have in common, i don't know if it was intentional. I usually doesn't like to rate movies, because it's hard to put how much you like a film in a scale of quality, but in cases of perfect works like this one, there's no doubt: 10/10
