Eric Rohmer explores his favorite two subjects again, i.e human compulsions and ethics. This time his film's backdrop are those lazy hazy days of summer vacation for the upper middle class in the mountains of France.
Several families with chateaus on a lake front visit back and forth during those sun dappled days. Among our group are several teen age daughters and their boyfriends, a few mothers/authors, and a thirty something single guy friend about to finally resign himself to marriage. Beneath the pleasantries exchanged over lunches on the lawn under shade trees, there bubbles vague yearnings and misplaced affections, primarily in the mind of the man. The mother seems almost bemused by his confessions to her.
Rohmer seems to be poking around the idea of how far one can carry his fantasies without crossing over any lines. However he leaves the viewer with an over-all feeling of how fleeting and essentially innocent this all is. Beneath the surface there is really nothing. No shadows emerge. In the end we are left with a simple portrait of a slice of life, as whispy as a summer cloud scudding over a lake's surface.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Exploration of the male sexuality
Added 10/28/2008
I picked this film after reading an article where film director Neil LaButte listed this film as one of the best films ever. For movie fans unfamilar with LaButte's work, he is a director of the film "In the Company of Men" that explores two business man taking (sexual) advantage of the vulnerable (deaf) young woman. In Eric Rohmer's movie we see middle aged diplomat on vacation in France striking a bargain with his writer (girl)friend who is observing a reaction between two young teenage girls when he tries to seduce them. Is it possible for the middle aged man, sexually more experienced and worldly to exhibit restraint in seducing two inexperienced, yet attractive young women? Is it the fact that he is engaged to be married a reason strong enough for him to keep his distance and not make any foolish choices? Can he influence these two young women into doing something foolish just to satisfy his own male ego in knowing that he was in control of the situation? I do not know but as a woman, all these guesses were pretty easy for me. Men in general can bed anything and anyone with little or no regrets. Actors in the film are mediocre. Stories are broken by days and feel somewhat fractured, there is no spontaneity to the movie. Perhaps if I were very young, I would find this film intriguing, but since that is not the case - I can give this film only three stars.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Chacun a son gout
Added 10/3/2007
"To each his own."
I agree with several other reviewers who state that a person either loves Rohmer or finds him boring and pretentious. I am a big fan of French cinema but I find that I fall into the latter category. I once lived with a family in the French Alps, not far from the site of this film and I noticed that the people did not just converse---every sentence had to be some sort of pronouncement. Fortunately those folks were wise, funny and nice, not like the ones in this movie. I found the talk of the characters here not only self-important but dull and lacking any of the wit or wisdom that they seemed to believe it contained. There is a young teenager, who is supposed to be 16 but looks 12 who talks with the self-assuredness of a Sorbonne professor, but again, without the wit. Some people are charmed by this; I'm not one of them.
I found the whole action of this going-on-middle aged man getting cozy with the teenaged girls rather repulsive. He is supposed to be just the "friend" of the younger one but his actions go way beyond what is appropriate. True, this adventure is supposed to be for the sake of his novelist friend, who is stuck with the plot of her latest work, but it's still tacky. As the Amazon reviewer mentioned, the whole point of the film is to show the self-delusion of this guy. I didn't really get that when I watched it but I certainly agree that he is.
The film is visually pleasing--the mountains, the lake, the beautiful old houses, the pretty young people in their swim suits. Other than that, I don't find a lot to recommend it.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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poor recording
Added 8/5/2007
This DVD looks like it was made from a VHS tape. Save the money and get the VHS tape, it will look the same
0 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Essential French cinema: Rohmer's 'Le Genou de Claire .'
Added 7/24/2007
"Why would I tie myself to one woman if I were interested in others?" Jerôme wonders, as he plans on marrying a diplomat's daughter by summer's end.
Éric Rohmer (1920) challenged traditional Hollywood cinema with his provocative New Wave cycle of films, Six Moral Tales ("Contes moraux"). Inspired by F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, each "tale" follows the same basic story: a man is tempted a woman, but he ultimately resists the temptation. Claire's Knee (Le Genou de Claire) (1970) tells the story of a career diplomat, Jerôme (Jean-Claude Brialy), who meets a teenager, Laura, and her beautiful, blonde stepsister, Claire, at a lakeside boardinghouse on the eve of his wedding. While Laura flirts with him, Jerôme is tempted only by Claire's knee on a ladder under a blooming cherry tree. This film reveals how conversation can be the best foreplay.
Filmed by the brilliant cinematographer, Nestor Almendros, this DVD edition of Claire's Knee contains several unfortunate DVD transfer problems, corrected in the more recent Criterion Collection of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales - Criterion Collection.
G. Merritt
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Eric Rohmer explores his favorite two subjects again, i.e human compulsions and ethics. This time his film's backdrop are those lazy hazy days of summer vacation for the upper middle class in the mountains of France.
Several families with chateaus on a lake front visit back and forth during those sun dappled days. Among our group are several teen age daughters and their boyfriends, a few mothers/authors, and a thirty something single guy friend about to finally resign himself to marriage. Beneath the pleasantries exchanged over lunches on the lawn under shade trees, there bubbles vague yearnings and misplaced affections, primarily in the mind of the man. The mother seems almost bemused by his confessions to her.
Rohmer seems to be poking around the idea of how far one can carry his fantasies without crossing over any lines. However he leaves the viewer with an over-all feeling of how fleeting and essentially innocent this all is. Beneath the surface there is really nothing. No shadows emerge. In the end we are left with a simple portrait of a slice of life, as whispy as a summer cloud scudding over a lake's surface.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Exploration of the male sexuality
Added 10/28/2008
I picked this film after reading an article where film director Neil LaButte listed this film as one of the best films ever. For movie fans unfamilar with LaButte's work, he is a director of the film "In the Company of Men" that explores two business man taking (sexual) advantage of the vulnerable (deaf) young woman. In Eric Rohmer's movie we see middle aged diplomat on vacation in France striking a bargain with his writer (girl)friend who is observing a reaction between two young teenage girls when he tries to seduce them. Is it possible for the middle aged man, sexually more experienced and worldly to exhibit restraint in seducing two inexperienced, yet attractive young women? Is it the fact that he is engaged to be married a reason strong enough for him to keep his distance and not make any foolish choices? Can he influence these two young women into doing something foolish just to satisfy his own male ego in knowing that he was in control of the situation? I do not know but as a woman, all these guesses were pretty easy for me. Men in general can bed anything and anyone with little or no regrets. Actors in the film are mediocre. Stories are broken by days and feel somewhat fractured, there is no spontaneity to the movie. Perhaps if I were very young, I would find this film intriguing, but since that is not the case - I can give this film only three stars.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Chacun a son gout
Added 10/3/2007
"To each his own."
I agree with several other reviewers who state that a person either loves Rohmer or finds him boring and pretentious. I am a big fan of French cinema but I find that I fall into the latter category. I once lived with a family in the French Alps, not far from the site of this film and I noticed that the people did not just converse---every sentence had to be some sort of pronouncement. Fortunately those folks were wise, funny and nice, not like the ones in this movie. I found the talk of the characters here not only self-important but dull and lacking any of the wit or wisdom that they seemed to believe it contained. There is a young teenager, who is supposed to be 16 but looks 12 who talks with the self-assuredness of a Sorbonne professor, but again, without the wit. Some people are charmed by this; I'm not one of them.
I found the whole action of this going-on-middle aged man getting cozy with the teenaged girls rather repulsive. He is supposed to be just the "friend" of the younger one but his actions go way beyond what is appropriate. True, this adventure is supposed to be for the sake of his novelist friend, who is stuck with the plot of her latest work, but it's still tacky. As the Amazon reviewer mentioned, the whole point of the film is to show the self-delusion of this guy. I didn't really get that when I watched it but I certainly agree that he is.
The film is visually pleasing--the mountains, the lake, the beautiful old houses, the pretty young people in their swim suits. Other than that, I don't find a lot to recommend it.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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