L’amour l’après-midi
Today, while watching this film (and also while doing other things), I have been eating a lot. Every time I eat I tend to get incredibly food-coma-ed, and now I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. It’s great that food tastes so good to me to induce a food coma, but it’s unfortunate that it basically me look like this (–.–) for about 2 hours. In such a situation the only thing I can do is continuing watch a film.
With that said, L’amour l’après-midi is significantly less difficult to watch than most of the other Contes Moraux. By difficult, I mostly mean the degree of reflection in the dialogue. While Ma nuit chez Maud had all that talk about Pascal and even Le genou de Claire had a bunch of complicated dialogue, L’amour l’après-midi is probably the most straight-forward Conte Moral. It is almost obvious what is right or wrong here, considering this is the first Conte Moral where the protagonist is actually married. It also does not help that Chloe appears to be quite a bitch who seems incapable of a serious relationship herself. She is more assertive than Haydée who is young and foolish but wants to be taken seriously (and certainly deserves more respect than she gets), and in general, Chloe knows what she wants, much like Maud. But while Maud appears composed and reasonable, Chloe gives off a wannabe feminist vibe with her “I’ll have a kid but the father is not allowed to see it” plans. It also seems nobody can do her any emotional damage even if she claims otherwise. If anyone did, she’d get her revenge anyways, so our feelings for her are probably colder than for most of the other women in the Contes Moraux.
For the dramatization and the storytelling, I am surprised how much this film works. For the first 30 minutes, I thought I would become more bored of this than the other Contes Moraux, whose ambivalence and complex storyline were the very reason I love them so much. But later on, especially as the character of Chloe gets further developed, I realized that there is an almost Maud-like erotic tension in the film, culminating in a wonderfully surprising break-up scene. I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that.
I didn’t like Zouzou very much. I was quite in love with Maud, Claire and especially Haydée, but this woman looks the least tempting out of all of them. It’s my personal taste I suppose. Much more interestingly, I loved the little fantasy scene in which most of Rohmer’s actresses reappear. That is such a nice gimmick for the last film of the series.
I thought that L’amour l’après-midi is a wonderfully realistic depiction of some of those bourgeois adulterous relationships, and I really enjoyed watching that. Rohmer’s has a great eye and he can put some interesting words into the most boring characters.
Overall, here’s how I would rank the Contes Moraux:
1. Ma nuit chez Maud
2. La boulangère de Monceau
3. L’amour l’après-midi
4. La collectionneuse
5. Le genou de Claire
6. La carrière de Suzanne