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Eric Rohmer's acute construction (a love triangle that never quite solidifies) is tied to the emotional storm—shyness, scorn, irritation, unacknowledged infatuation—behind placid intellectual façades. Suzanne (Catherine Sée) is contemplated at the sidewalk café by the pharmaceutical student (Philippe Beuzen), who in his narration deems her unworthy of the seducing talents of his chum (Christian Charrière). He professes his interest in the Irish lass (Diane Wilkinson) yet his thoughts keep going back to the gamine: "I stay philosophically in my corner, but I could sense Suzanne was on the verge of tears," he muses dryly at a party. Splayed hands on a table for an impromptu séance, the spirit summoned might be Mozart's Don Giovanni. After she's abandoned by the ladykiller ("Her body is not bad, but she's got my mother's name"), a fluctuating flirtation with the priggishly analytical mind. Further refinements of form from La Boulangère de Monceau, an increasing interiorization in which the realization that the girl can foot the bill at the end of the date "opens up whole new worlds." The torn dress and the money inside the book, the bohemian netherworld as a nest of manipulation and smugness from men "more dumb than mean." A graceful and acerbic sketch, made to be expanded (Ma Nuit chez Maud on one side, on the other In the Company of Men) though by itself complete. At the close reigns the Rohmer heroine, "no classical beauty" in her bathing suit under the chump's gaze, luxuriating in "sa vraie revanche." In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |