Claire's Knee (1970)

There's a lot to enjoy in Claire's Knee: the relaxed easy pace, the charming characters, the warm and insightful conversations, the stunning scenery of the French Alps.

Unfortunately I can't find any way to identify or empathize with a world that is so comfortable, so boring, so unambiguous, and ultimately, so superficial. None of the characters seem to work; no-one ever seems anxious or troubled; nothing particularly bad or good happens, or seems likely to ever happen. It's a film of low-level emotions, and low stakes -- for the characters, and for the viewers.

In this bland world, the only question of importance becomes: will the main character, a man of 35 or older, seduce one of the two teenage beauties? No particularly momentous moral calculus is involved, and ultimately the stakes were so low that I could not bring myself to care. The character is good man, or he's a lecher, or he's neither...but I feel Rohmer did not give me any reason why any of this might matter.

Claire's Knee is a hymn of praise to French charm, bourgeois comforts, and inconsequential easy pleasures. If that's your thing, enjoy yourself with this film. Me, I'll be over there in the corner, watching films by directors that ask harder questions.