Review of Claire's Knee (1970) by Ryan H — 06 Jun 2010

This is now my favorite of Rohmer's six moral tales. Many funny moments are surrounded by entertaining and interesting characters. Jerome is getting married, but first he's taking a month's vacation in the French countryside.

His first day in France, Jerome runs into a woman he has loved for a long time, Aurora. When he tells her he's engaged she is quite surprised. Jerome never believed in marriage before and now he's dedicating his life to one woman.

Rohmer goes about telling this part of the story perfectly. We get to understand his thoughts on love through this woman, but we never see her and we always feel her presence. It stops him from doing anything, which he claims he is free to do whatever he wants.

He and his fiance have both had affairs, but nothing serious because only they can live with each other. They are getting married for comfort. While on his vacation, Jerome also meets Laura, a sixteen year old girl, and Claire, her sister.

Aurora points out to Jerome that Laura is getting a crush on him, and for the sake of her writing he should pursue this girl. Jerome takes her up the mountain one day and they discuss their ideas of love, and he even kisses her.

This is the furthest their relationship goes. Jerome tells Aurora that he has a new direction he wants to take her writing, and she will never guess where he is going. He has found an obsession with Claire's knee.

To be quite honest, I don't fully understand this part. Perhaps this links more with his conversation with Aurora from earlier. Aurora discusses dating younger men as well, but they never really do it for her.

To me, this whole dating younger people and creating love was simply their searching to be young again and have the shenanigans that they once had. Jerome keeps insisting that he is only doing these things for Aurora's writing, but there is definitely a desire from his end, but he doesn't want to cheat on his fiance anymore.

Jean-Claude Brialy has a difficult task in playing this aging man caught in between enjoying his age and wanting youthfulness. I think one of the funniest parts of this film is when Aurora tries to get Jerome to accidentally touch Claire's knee.

I'm still trying to understand all of the women taking glances into the camera. Perhaps it was them actually speaking to Rohmer, which would be why Jerome never looks in the camera. Perfect dialogue, excellent cinematography.

I hope the other 2 moral tales are this great.