Dir. Eric Rohmer, 1972, France, 97min, French with English subtitles
Cast: Bernard Verley, Zouzou, Françoise Verley
This film completes the six-piece Moral Tales series by beloved French auteur, Eric Rohmer. Love him or hate him, he certainly has a distinctive style. L'amour l'apres-midi is a typical Rohmer film dealing with the temptation of a happily married man. Being no-frills, dialogue-driven in style, it's more an examination than a film.
Frédéric (Verley) is partner in a small consultancy in Paris. He is happily married to Hélène (Verley), a teacher and scholar, and they have a small child, with another on the way. The film opens with a quirky, amusing monologue by Frédéric, told in voiceover as we accompany him on his daily routine: his journey to work, his day in Paris, his return home to his family. We learn of his preoccupation with other women, and with the question of who he would have been with had he not married his wife. His musings culminate in a dream sequence where he is wearing an anti-free will device around his neck, which radiates out as he stands on a Parisian pavement and draws passing women to him, where they agree to his every whim. "I dream I actually possess them all," he says. Thankfully, the most dangerous extreme this goes to is coercing one woman to leave her boyfriend and come with him, before the dream breaks when one woman tells him just where to go.
At this point, both the speculation as to how the story will unfold, and any sense of fun in the film, come to an end. Chloé (played by 60's legend Zouzou) an ex of an old friend, appears in his office one day and suddenly his daydreams cease. We can see immediately where Frédéric's mixture of repulsion and fascination will lead, a presumption helped by the ambiguity of his relationship with his wife. Their kiss as he leaves for work is decidedly stiff. Either their marriage is strained (and there's no sign of that in his attitude during the monologues) or even Rohmer is uninterested in his characters, to the point that he seeks no sense of realness in their portrayal.
What seems at stake here is Frédéric's morality, his commitment to being a family man above and separate from his dreams. To a viewer somewhat removed (by Rohmer's own devices) from the dilemma confronting him, it's hard to feel any attachment to the outcome. Rohmer, a devout Catholic apparently, is interested in the idea of resisting temptation. This doesn't come across as particularly philosophical wrangling so much as chronic indecision, which ultimately frustrating and rather dull.
The key is Chloé: a chain-smoking, straight-talking modern woman, if a little flighty in her decisions. She is always honest, always direct with Frédéric and is the perfect foil to his angst and existential struggle. When he ultimately leaves her unsatisfied in favour of an emotional return to his wife, how can we not feel exasperated by his selfish actions?
There are interesting insights into Frédéric's character, in fact, from his superficial encounters with women: from his two secretaries, whose looks he admits to Chloé were a factor in their employment, to the salesgirl in an early shopping trip, who talks him into buying a shirt when he'd gone into the shop buy a turtle neck. It's a nice touch that when Chloé reappears after having suddenly vanished from his life for some weeks, he is wearing his shirt: the mark of his struggle with his own free will.
Frédéric fits in perfectly with his surroundings. The Paris of this film is transitory, hyporeal - as he says: "That's why I love the city. People pass and vanish. You don't see them grow old." The colours - whether this is due to the film's age or a directorial decision - lend a greenish pallor to the characters, which only serves to heighten the unreal atmosphere.
Dialogue is so important to Rohmer, it seems, that even background conversations have been subtitled. There's a quote from the film Night Moves, where Gene Hackman's detective quips: "I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry." It really is: there's little visual stimulus and a lot of listening, and tiring listening at that. Look no further than the 20-minute illustrated lecture, Changing Landscapes, included on the DVD for an even clearer example. If you're not familiar with Rohmer's work, you will have to try hard to like this film. The temptation to embrace the transitory and switch your brain off may just be too much.
Kerry McLeod
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