La boulangere de Monceau (1963) - by Faro

A man walking on the streets of Paris, looking. And we are looking with him. Will he find a woman? A woman who might bring him love and give his life meaning? What will he do if he finds her? What if he finds her twice?

Thus begins the first of Eric Rohmer's 6 Morality Tales. Not "morality" in the sense of a God-based ethical system, but "morality tales" in the sense of narratives told by first-person inner monologues. Analysis rather than action.

As Rohmer says of his films: "My intention was not to film raw events, but the narrative that someone makes of them. The story, the choice of facts, their organization... not the treatment I could have made them submit to... everything happens in the head of the narrator."

Rohmer was a part of the French New Wave Cinema, and so he eschewed the pedantically prescribed cinematic rules that dominated (and still dominate) mainstream films.

To draw back as much as possible from unnecessary flourishes and predictable cinematic formula, Rhomer gives us unassuming camera work, no musical score, and uses only the natural settings that his actors inhabit during the shoot. There are no sound stages, no added surrealism or exoticism. More than other New Wave directors, Rhomer seems to leave his characters to their own devices without directorial interference.

But don’t let Rohmer’s supposed objectivity fool you... there is conflict here, a cognitive crossroads that he is purposefully smashing together. Truffaut’s iconoclasm was up front as he whipped back and forth with disjointed editing and consciously copied whole sections of other films. And Goddard poured surrealism and pop culture references over every seemingly concrete scene. But Rohmer played a different game, a game behind his visual images that seem so simple and unassuming... Rohmer is subverting the simple Director by elevating the Writer.

Against a direct, cinema verite style with straightforward and often banal action, Rhomer mashes this simplicity with a reserved literary voice-over by the main protagonist that often sounds detached and undramatic but is actually engaged in the most complex inner structuring of Self. Is it right to do this? Will I look for her again today? Is this girl better than the other girl I seek? Should I have another croissant? We are given the most information on what is happening by what the character tells us (or doesn’t tell us), but what the character thinks is juxtaposed and often contested by the simple images that we are given to see... and what then should we believe?

Rohmer acts as the Director and the Writer for all 6 of his Morality Tales, and in the long fought battle of Film versus Literature, he gives the internal solipsistic textual thoughts of his leading men the upper hand... but do they know themselves well enough to tell us about their lives?

In this first film, which is as slim and simple and lovely as a young girl in the first days of spring, we watch the young man find a girl on the streets of Paris whom he then loses contact with. Then while trying to find her again he finds instead another young girl working in a pastry shop. He views them differently, speaks of them differently, and because we are offered so little authoritative information about them or him we bring our own conceptions and ideas with us to color every thought and motion. In the end he must make a choice, but is it the right one? Are either of the girls right for him? Is he right for either of the girls? Is there a right choice? Should I have one more croissant?