A Tale of Springtime

Clever, witty, tasteful, bloodless. Although sex seems to be on everyone's mind in this post-modern tale, only Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann provide any passion in a film that reminds me more of Satie's witty piano doodles.

Jeanne, a charming woman in her thirties, meets Natasha, a college student at a party and they strike up an unlikely friendship Bored with the party, they return to Natasha's apartment in Paris where her father's frequent absence allows her to invite Jeanne to stay for a week. While some thoughts may run to deviance or intrigue, A Tale of Springtime is Eric Rohmer territory and that means sparkling conversation, complex characters, and a slowly unfolding plot in which everyone discovers something new about themselves. Springtime is the first of Rohmer's Four Seasons series and, while we may not always be sure where we are going, we are always sure that there is an artist in firm control.

Both Jeanne and Natasha are smart and well spoken but each seems vaguely dissatisfied with their life. Jeanne (Anne Teyssedre), a philosophy teacher in high school, has lent her apartment to her cousin but refuses to stay at her boyfriend's place because of his inclination toward disorder and cannot quite come to terms with the question of whether or not she is in love with him. Natasha (Florence Darel) is a very talented pianist with romance and matchmaking on her mind; however, she is resentful of her divorced father's girlfriend Eve (Eloise Bennett), and has some serious thoughts about lining her father Igor (Hugues Quester) up with Jeanne.

Outwardly sweet but inwardly manipulative, Natasha suspects that Eve has stolen a family necklace that her father promised to her and tells the story to Jeanne, hoping to turn the teacher against her father's lover. When Igor shows up for a rare family dinner, all four participate in a philosophical conversation that leads to a clash of personalities. Each tries to impress the other with their knowledge and engage in some banter about Kantian philosophy, and it is easy to get lost among all the priori's and the posteriori's. The scene, however, is not really about philosophy but about how each character is revealed through their reactions and responses. Igor and Jeanne are attracted to each other but are leery of being manipulated. They cannot really be with each other because of that little voice chattering away in the back of their minds telling them to be cautious. As Jeanne says, "I spend too much time thinking about thought".

Unlike most Rohmer works, music is very much a part of this film, and the use of Beethoven's lilting Spring Sonata provides just the right touch. Though not on the top rung of Rohmer's films, A Tale of Springtime is a wonderfully entertaining way to spend two hours. It stands as a perfect example of how our considerations can sometimes get in the way of our aliveness and true self-interest. Characteristic of Rohmer, while each character is flawed and a bit lacking in self-awareness, they are very human and we identify their foibles as our own. By the end of the film, they have become a part of our lives.

Artistic tastes are entirely subjective, so I'll start by mentioning some of my favourite directors, and if they're your faves too, then read on. Otherwise, just skip my entire review.

Robert Bresson, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Akira Kurosawa, Bela Tarr, Wim Wenders. And when he's not annoying the living crap out of me, I really like Werner Herzog.

I neither liked nor disliked "Tale of Springtime" but was left feeling unfulfilled. Other reviewers have criticized this film for being "boring", "slow" and "plotless". You won't hear that from me. On the contrary, I thought the mood and pacing were perfect. The big problem: it never delivered anything worth justifying the effort of watching. And I don't mean car chases and spaceships; I mean something of philosophical value.

This movie drew me in with literary and philosophical teasers implying that the film would attack the grand questions of existence. It begins with an air of mystery (no dialogue for the first 4 minutes) and a teaser about some dark unknown truth about the main character, a philosophy professor; when she finally speaks, she muses about how an invisible person--the bearer of Plato's ring of Gyges--would probably be struggling to piece together the unusual events surrounding her life. We are repeatedly given hints of her guarded secret love-life (a lover's apartment which she is afraid to visit), her violent temper which she repeatedly warns people about, discussions of Plato, Kant, transcendentalism, anything & everything indicating that some substance would follow.

I felt totally cheated upon slowly realizing that the protagonist is absolutely average, her life uneventful, and the only grand philosophical question attacked is whether she should kiss her friend's father. Boo. Note to filmmakers: do NOT allude to Plato's ring of Gyges (several times) unless you plan to back it up! That's like opening a film with Beethoven's 7th Symphony, then turning the rest of the film into a campy scifi flick about sex in the 22nd century. Oh wait, John Boorman actually did that in "Zardoz".

I would contrast this film against Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" which, similarly, follows the life of a mysterious lone protagonist & forces us to unravel his life in cryptic vignettes. As in Tale of Springtime, in Werckmeister we also get teasing doses of philosophy to pique our interest. The difference being in Werckmeister the philosophy is profound, pervasive and relevant to the story and setting, and, though painfully slow at times, Werckmeister gives the audience a powerful thought to chew on after the credits roll.

This is the third Rohmer film I've seen, and I think I have to conclude that he's not for me. Elements of this film are like Kieslowski whom I adore, but this film doesn't pack the same haunting depth as, say, "Decalogue" or "Trois Couleurs". Elements of this film are like Wim Wenders whom I also adore, but here we lack the satisfying payoff and poetic closure like in "Paris, Texas", "End of Violence" or "Don't Come Knocking". In short, this film has all the style & art of Kieslowski, Wenders & the aforementioned master directors, but none of the guts.

By the way, I actually liked "Zardoz"!

From the beginning of this film to the end Jeanne is constantly displaced. The first scene has her returning to her own apartment after a long absence to find the cousin she was allowing to borrow the place is still there in spite of her agreement to leave a day or two previously. Although she desperately wants to return to the order of her own place she pretends that she was just stopping by to pick something up on her way back to the place she shares with her out of town boyfriend. However, she does not feel comfortable returning to this disordered place so to avoid it as long as possible she goes to the party of a former acquaintance. Here she meets Natasha and the plot gets started.

Natasha lives alone in a big apartment and she invites Jeanne to stay with her a few days. Jeanne mostly feels out of place here as well but her two day stay stretches into something like ten before she is finally able to return home. During this time she grows increasingly agitated which causes her to act distrustful and paranoid. Unfortunately, her new friend Natasha is acting much the same way toward her father's current love interest and the combination of a negative atmosphere and her own paranoia put her in a rather unpleasant situation.

In spite of the general tension of the plot, A Tale of Springtime ends on a very upbeat note that suggests most of the distrust the characters felt toward one another was unfounded. Indeed, the blossoming of new relationships and the general happiness of the characters make Spring a fitting setting for the film. Still, I couldn't help but feel that this wasn't one of Rohmer's strongest efforts: sure, the characters were just as natural as ever and the dialog was even more chock full of interesting ideas than usual but the cinematography wasn't all that special. All things considered, I would say this was quite good but nowhere near the best Rohmer has offered.

This movie and others of Eric Rohmer have a very interesting and unusual style. Character development is at its peak. He may give lesson on it to many other directors. The movie takes place in only 4 or 5 settings, one of which is a garden in Fontainebleau and others are apartment rooms. So the main focus is not the scene but the characters themselves. The subject of this movie and most others of Eric Rohmer are basically romantic relationships. Female characters express their emotions all the time. Some of them have more or less consistent thoughts while some have varying during the movie. They present their subjective thoughts on a particular event so the viewers are left with several choices. The literature in conversations are wisely written line by line. It consists of philosophical, psychological and faith-based arguments. Such a rating for such a low budget movie. This is the success of Eric Rohmer.