Eric Rohmer's A Tale of Springtime offers a French fix, at the Cinematheque to May 6
Film joins a newly restored seasonal quartet from the celebrated director
The Cinematheque streams Eric Rohmer’s “Tales of the Four Seasons “ until May 6
AMID THESE perfect April days of cherry blossoms and pink sunsets, forgive us if our mind goes to Paris in the springtime.
You can spend a few hours there in French director Eric Rohmer’s acutely wrought but restrained story of stifled love, A Tale of Springtime, a story of stifled love that’s set in historic Paris apartments and a country house in nearby Fontainebleau. And it’s all shot in the soft, lovely shades of the titular season, blossoms and foliage everywhere.
Featuring the music of Beethoven and Schumann, it centres on a compelling, cultured, and authentic-feeling trio of characters. Eighteen-year-old music student Natacha (Florence Darel) meets philosophy teacher Jeanne (Anne Teyssèdre) at a party, and decides (secretly) to try to match her up with her divorced father Igor (Hugues Quester). Complicating matters further are that both Jeanne and Igor already have partners.
The 1990 film is the first in Rohmer’s quartet “Tales of the Four Seasons”—all newly restored and on view via The Cinematheque this month—and like so many of his films (think Pauline at the Beach), it offers lessons without ever taking a hard moral stance. Here they might include treading carefully if you think you can force love to conform to your grand plans, and stopping the dithering if you don’t want to miss out on love. As usual with Roehmer—Pauline Kael famously called his style “lapidary”—the beauty comes in the details.
Follow it up with subsequent seasons, which bring more chance encounters, romantic transience, and missed opportunities. And dream of the day you can see Paris in springtime again.
Related Articles
