‘Rendezvous’ Presents Trio Of Parisian Love Stories
You’ll get no argument from Eric Rohmer that Paris is the city of lovers. “Rendezvous in Paris,” the 27th film in the director’s remarkable career, is a deceptively light, loping essay on the vagaries of modern-day romance. The French capital, it seems, is a place teeming with the young and the smitten, with flirters, philanderers and the hopelessly enrapt. It thrums with passion, with men seeking women and women seeking men. Its parks and cafes, markets and museums are arenas of courtship.
Rohmer has cast his picture, a trilogy of short tales, with an appealing group of unknowns. In the first section, “The Seven o’Clock Rendezvous,” law student Esther (Clara Bellar) is told that her lover, Horace (Antoine Basler), is cheating on her. Then a young man on the street tries to pick her up, and she agrees to meet him at a cafe. Esther discovers that she’s lost her wallet (which she suspects the stranger pickpocketed). It is returned by a cheerful woman (Cecile Pares) who, it turns out, is meeting someone at the very same cafe. When both women appear at the sidewalk table of Esther’s boyfriend - well, sparks “don’t” fly, but Esther and Horace exchange a few pointed words before she walks off into the Place Beaubourg.
“Rendezvous”’ second part, “The Benches of Paris,” follows the perambulations of an illicit couple - the perennially scarf-swathed Aurore Rauscher and Serge Renko - clinching and conversing along chestnut-lined streets and chilly gardens in blustery late autumn. Here, too, a serendipitous crossingof-paths provides the story’s turning point. It seems that Rauscher’s character and her longtime boyfriend have chosen the same Montmartre hotel for their adulterous trysts.
In “Mother and Child,” a self-centered artist (Michael Kraft) ditches his Swedish date (Veronika Johansson) when he spies an ethereal beauty seated before a painting in the Picasso Museum. He pursues her into the alleys of the Marais district and brings her to his studio, where they talk about art and love. Then she leaves - to meet her husband - and he returns to painting.
That’s about it for plot. Rohmer, a master of talky, nothing-seems-to-be-happening cinema, lets the emotional force of his parables accumulate in a graceful, backhanded manner. Scenes are astutely detailed; his actors - an attractive but hardly movie-star-handsome lot - exude a natural, easygoing air, their conversations edged with wit and a wistful intelligence.
Unlike Hal Hartley, whose similarly themed “Flirt” came out last month, Rohmer manages to convey the essence of his characters’ longings without an iota of artifice. Breezy in spirit even as it paints a picture of rueful lovers and romantic despair, “Rendezvous in Paris” is a pure, simple joy.
xxxx “Rendezvous In Paris” Location: Magic Lantern cinemas Credits: Written and directed by Eric Rohmer, starring Clara Bellar, Antoine Basler, Michael Kraft. Running time: 1:40 Rating: Unrated (In French with subtitles.)