Review of Claire's Knee (1970) by Ryan M — 05 May 2010

Eric Rohmer wasn't as highly regarded as some of his new wave contemporaries like Godard and Truffaut, but if "Claire's Knee" is anything to go by, he really should be. I can't think of many other directors who could have taken the storyline of a middle-aged bloke desiring to grab a teenage girl's knee, and turn it into something intriguing rather than disgusting.

The lead character Jerome is a bit of an egoist, engaged to marry the never-seen Lucinde he meets up with Aurora, a novelist and former flame by the french Alps. Jerome claims that he desires no other woman, so Aurora first tests his resolve by telling him to go hit on her landlady's young daughter Laura. He says he'll do it "as a favour for a friend" but I think he does it because he's anxious about getting married + wonders if he's still attractive to the opposite sex (his motivations will be a point of discussion throughout). After discovering he has no deep feelings for her (despite her being very attracted to him), Laura's half-sister Claire shows up, an outrageously beautiful young girl who's already got a boyfriend so she's extremely disinterested in Jerome. While she's picking fruit from a tree off a ladder, he notices that she has quite a nice knee + develops an odd desire to caress it.

It may contain a bit too much talk about the mysteries of love, but "Claire's Knee" is an intelligent film concerning the contradictions of love and of its main character, photographed by Nestor Almendros so it's gorgeous to look at, what could have been a film about a dirty old man is actually a very interesting film about love and desire.