Les rendez-vous de Paris

It 's not that the actress in the movie is beautiful, but that every woman in Paris looks good. Such a simple and romantic story can only be seen in Eric Rohmer 's movie.

Eric Rohmer usually explores with exceptional psychological talent what is in the minds and hearts of ordinary people in what concerns love relations. In his movie people reflect and talk thoroughly about what they feel (or suppose they feel) in what regards those relations and live apparently superficial events although very meaningful and sometimes unexpected and surprising. In this movie the first two stories are about love and infidelity treated in a humorous way without prejudice of their psychological depth. Human beings are like that and they not always realize what they really feel. The third story is of love and infatuation, of illusion and disillusion when you think that because you love someone, automatically the loved one also loves you which seldom is true. The city of Paris atmosphere where the three stories take place is particularly favourable to such sentiments and situations for its romantic urban environment. We have then here the usual Rohmer's characters: authentic human beings somewhat doubtful about their feelings and thoughts (though they sometimes suppose they are certain about that) who now and then have to face situations for which they were not prepared. Not very dramatic but not superficial anyway.

This little film (actually 3 separate films) looks as if it was shot as a college film school thesis. The characters all seem to be students, academics, and artists, exactly the kind of people who populate such films! The characters don't seem to be experiencing any romantic epiphanies, either, but rather the filmmaker seems to be exploring the kind of questions of how-do-you-fall-in-love-and-who-with that are so ... collegiate.

I found it mildly diverting; my wife found it a good cure for her insomnia.

As a travelogue, it provides a great tour of the parks of Paris, and glimpses of the Metro and city streets.

All three tales here reference romance, if in very different ways, and Paris is generously used, including some little known spots. The dynamic between young men and women is credibly yet delicately drawn, with more than a touch of understated humor along the way. The whole film has a slight sense of an exercise in style such as the Coen brothers sometimes undertake. It is very French in its verbal examination of ideas and relationships: "I never date painters, I like paintings too much"; "Picasso is never Picasso, that is what makes him Picasso". A gentle social satire runs through much of it along with an indulgent view of youth - one very much feels that all these people will view life very differently a decade later. But for now they're young, and thinking a little too profoundly, and flirting far too easily, and yes playing a few games. Those who are like them, or remember when they were, will smile and happily follow them as they form light memories to look back on from a weightier future.

Eric Rohmer's Les rendez-vous de Paris brought back so many memories from my first summer in Paris, at the age of twenty-six. In my experience, the place was teeming with dragueuers, and the scenes and locales of this film are all familiar, reminding me of how intrinsically social French society is.

I have to wonder how Parisians are faring through the Coronapocalypse. No more double and quadruple social kissing, Je suppose. C'est triste, un peu. I cannot really imagine Paris filled with masked people moving to the other side of the street upon sighting another person. And yet, here we are. I hope that Paris recovers.