Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales - Criterion Collection (BLU-RAY)

The multifaceted, deeply personal dramatic universe of Eric Rohmer has had an effect on cinema unlike any other. One of the founding critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinéma, Rohmer began translating his written manifestos to film in the sixties, standing apart from his new-wave contemporaries, like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, with his patented brand of gently existential, hyperarticulate character studies set against vivid seasonal landscapes. This near genre unto itself was established with his audacious and wildly influential series Six Moral Tales. A succession of jousts between fragile men and the women who tempt them, Six Moral Tales unleashed on the film world a new voice, one that was at once sexy, philosophical, modern, daring, nonjudgmental, and liberating. The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1962) A law student (played by producer and future director Barbet Schroeder) with a roving eye and a large appetite stuffs himself full of sugar cookies and pastries all daily in order to garner the attentions of the pretty brunette who works in the quaint Paris bakery. But is her truly interested, or is she just sweet diversion? Claire´s Knee (1970) "Why would I tie myself to one woman if I were interested in others?" says Jérôme, even as he plans on marrying a diplomat´s daughter by summer´s end. Before then, Jérôme spends his July at a lakeside boardinghouse nursing crushes on the sixteen-year-old Laura and, more tantalizingly, Laura´s long-legged, blonde half sister Claire. Baring her knee on a ladder under a blooming cherry tree, Claire unwittingly instigates Jérôme´s moral crisis and creates both one of French cinema´s most enduring moments and what has become the iconic image of Rohmer´s Moral Tales. Suzanne´s Career (1963) Bertrand bides his time in a casually hostile and envious friendship with college chum Guillaume. But when the ladies´ man Guillaume seems to be making a play for the spirited, independent Suzanne, Bertrand watches bitterly with disapproval and jealously. With its ragged black-and-white 16mm photography and strong sense of 1960s Paris, Rohmer´s second Moral Tale is a wonderfully evocative portrait of youthful naiveté and the complicated bonds of friendship and romance. My Night At Maud´s (1969) A pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties, he lives by a strict moral code in order to rationalize his world, drowning himself in mathematics and the philosophy of Pascal. After spotting the delicate, blonde Françoise at Mass, he vows to make her his wife, although when he unwittingly spends the night at the apartment of the bold, brunette divorcée Maud, his rigid ethical standards are challenged. La Collectionneuse (1967) A bombastic, womanizing art dealer and his painter friend go to a seventeenth-century villa on the riviera for a relaxing summer getaway. But their idyll is disturbed by the presence of the bohemian Haydée, accused of being a "collector" of men. Rohmer´s first color film, La collectionneuse pushes the Moral Tales into new, darker realms. Yet it is also a grand showcase for the clever and delectably ironic battle-of-the-sexes repartee. Love In The Afternoon (1972) Though happily married to his adoring wife Hélène, with whom he is expecting a second child, the thoroughly bourgeois business executive Frédéric cannot banish from his mind the multitude of attractive Parisian women who pass him by every day. His flirtations and fantasies remain harmless until Chleé (played by mesmerizing Zouzou), an audacious, unencumbered old flame, shows up at his office, embodying the first genuine threat to his marriage. The luminous final chapter to Rohmer´s Moral Tale is a tender, sobering, and wholly adult affair that leads to perhaps the most overwhelmingly emotional moment in the entire series.