CLAIRE'S KNEE Movie Review

Le Genou de Claire

Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy), a young man who's engaged to be married, decides he needs a bit of a breather beforehand in order to rest and contemplate the step he's about to take; you could say Jerome needs to get himself together. The spot he chooses for his R and R is a kind of beautiful no man's land, a lake that exists just between France and Switzerland. While in this idyllic setting, Jerome runs into an old flame, Aurora (Aurora Cornu). As if this weren't enough of a distraction, it seems that Aurora is vacationing with another family in which there are two daughters: Laura (Béatrice Romand in a film-stealing performance), a wise-beyond-her-years and somewhat gawky teenager, and Claire (Laurence de Monaghan), Laura's not-so-brilliant older sister, who happens to be a knockout. Laura's completely infatuated with Jerome, but their relationship remains non-physical. Jerome's problem is Claire—her knee, to be more specific. His physical obsession with the young woman (who has a sharply observed, self-absorbed boyfriend) is focused on this single body part in a way that is both absurd and honest, and Jerome spends a lot of time analyzing his fascination before deciding that action must be taken. How writer/director Eric Rohmer fashions all of this into a supremely witty suspense film about eroticism, fetishism, and self-delusion is one of the cinema's modern miracles, and one of its glories. This fifth of Rohmer's “Six Moral Tales” is a brilliantly structured, hugely enjoyable sex comedy disguised as a series of casual, individually inconsequential encounters. Rohmer's talent is truly magical, because he never allows us to see how he does it.

NEXT STOP … Pauline at the Beach, My Night at Maud's, Vertigo

1971 105m/C FR Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Beatrice Romand, Laurence De Monaghan, Gerard Falconetti; D: Eric Rohmer; W: Eric Rohmer; C: Nestor Almendros. National Society of Film Critics Awards '71: Best Film. VHS, LV FCT