RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS Movie Review

Les Rendez-vous de Paris

The three tales of young love that comprise Eric Rohmer's twentieth feature are engaging, wise, revealing, and deeply funny, demonstrating anew that at age 75, Rohmer may well be the most perceptive chronicler of young people in all cinema. The first story tells of a trusting woman whose refusal to believe the rumors about her boyfriend's alleged infidelities leads to a series of coincidental encounters, culminating in a surprising discovery. The picturesque centerpiece tells of a deceptively free-spirited young woman whose erotic fascination with her lover is based on an unusual formula of risk and reward. As enchanting as these two stories are, however, they're no match for the film's finale, a tiny, jewel-like classic about a self-absorbed artist who meets his match when he picks up a beautiful woman at the Picasso Museum. This sequence shifts mood almost continuously, evolving from low comedy to improbable, impeccably timed farce, and finally becoming a startlingly clear-eyed—and ruthlessly honest—psychological profile of a serial womanizer. Rendezvous in Paris proves that Eric Rohmer—who still makes eloquence look easy— remains one of the cinema's great masters of romantic comedy.

NEXT STOP … Summer, Claire's Knee, Boyfriends & Girlfriends

1995 100m/C FR Clara Bellar, Antoine Basler, Mathias Megard, Judith Chancel, Aurore Rauscher, Serge Renko, Michael Kraft, Benedicte Loyen, Veronika Johansson; D: Eric Rohmer; W: Eric Rohmer; C: Diane Baratier; M: Sebastien Erms. VHS NYF