The Aviator's Wife (1981)

That was an excellent one.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Reading up about the film makers of the French New Wave (FNW) I found myself put off taking a look at the work of Eric Rohmer,due to Rohmer sounding like the ultimate fuddy-duddy hipster. Unaware about my view on Rohmer,my dad caught me by surprise,by giving me a 6 film DVD/Blu-Ray set of Rohmer titles for Easter!,which has unexpectedly led to me unrolling the first in Rohmer's "Comedies et Proverbes" movie series.The plot:Deeply in love with his girlfriend, François starts to fear that Anne is cheating on him,when she is spotted with ex-boyfriend Christian.Walking round town soon after seeing this sight, François spots Christian with another women. Secretly following them, François soon finds someone following him.View on the film:Tragically dying in a campsite fire a few weeks after the movie came out, Philippe Marlaud gives a great performance as the heart on his sleeve François,whose outpouring of love for Anne's Marlaud expresses with a considerate sincerity,Spotting François in the park, Anne- Laure Meury (reuniting with Rohmer) gives a wonderful performance as Lucie,whose games on François, Meury performs with a cheeky sass.Covered in lush water colour shades of green,writer/director Éric Rohmer & cinematographer Bernard Lutic cast an atmosphere of tranquillity over the movie.For the mystery François is trying to solve,the screenplay by Rohmer gathers up the clues with a breezy manner that keeps the viewers guard down on the clever "full circle" ending just round the corner. Whilst other film makers ruthlessly attacked the bourgeoisie lifestyle,Rohmer appears to oddly embrace it,with the non-mystery moments failing to define the tantalising outline of the characters,and the aviator's wife

Rohmer's subtlety in this film is approaching completion. There is a moment that I notice that went unnoticed but my opinion is essential in film flow. When Aviator and pass by Francois and his wife Lucie, Lucie says out loud in German Aviator returns (probably German aviator known) surprised. Lucile pretends he does not know what she said when in fact is very clear: "So you're ongoing to marry." Moment that completely changes the course of the film (which only apparently does not change). It is exactly the same method used by Flemish painters who were hiding in paintings seemingly trivial details surprising, subtle, encrypted messages. Brilliant film, perhaps one of the best I've seen....

Now I can safely deem I have reached an approximate age to watch Rohmer's canon, mid-30s is a ripe age to broach more cerebral film viewing activities, so my first and random pick is THE AVIATOR'S WIFE, Rohmer's first part of Comedies et Proverbes (6 parts in all) series. The film is capsulized in one-day's span, Francois (Marlaud), a young student whose night shift makes the relationship with his girlfriend Anne (Rivière) in strain, after witnessing Anne left with her ex-lover Christian (Carrière) from her apartment in the morning, and later a sour altercation with Anne, a jealousy-driven Francois compulsively follows Christian and his blonde companion (Caillot), and by happenstance he meets a 15-year-old schoolgirl Lucie (Meury), the two improvise an amateurish but perky private detective team until they find out Christian goes to visit a lawyer. After Lucie departs, Francois visits a stress-inflicted Anne, it seems they reconcile and Francois figures out who the blonde is. When the night falls, Anne is out for an exhausting date and Francois accidentally finds Lucie kiss another boy, so he sends a postcard to her and put a closure to their stalking adventure, the story ends. There is no big twist or melodramatic plots in Rohmer's film, he masterfully recounts the dribs and drabs of emotions pestering one's relationship and daily lives, visceral and empathetic, he unerringly captures the quirks and fluctuations of the characters he writes, no larger-than-life frills, everything returns to an authentic basis which reflects its transfixing mojo, for example, the intricate discovery of the blonde's identity is casually schemed, but never condescending or audience-pandering, truth reveals itself in its most trivial form, also in the park, when Lucie intends to take a Polaroid from two tourists, it is lifelikeness never feel redundant in spite of its overlong progress which would be trimmed in most cinematic presentations, but Rohmer is confident to let his audience to savor the subtle interactions among the players and keeps it vibrant. The sad trivia of the cast is Marlaud would soon die in a tragic camping tent fire accident after completing this film, he was only 22, in the film he interprets a sensitive and diffident boy, who is smitten with Anne, an independent working girl 5 years older than him, their on-and-off rapport is under close scrutiny, and Rivière takes on a more difficult role and dominates the screen especially during her expository declaration of her credo in self-reliance in her tiny apartment. Meury is a delight in the midstream, maybe too quick-witted for a 15-year-old, but her natural self-confidence could easily win audiences over. The titular wife only exists as a glimpse on a picture, whose back-story would illicit another film feature to expound an existential individual's philosophical quandary about affection and compromise. Sadly, there is no Rohmer in this world anymore.

THE AVIATOR'S WIFE - Eric Rohmer / France 1981 (3.5 STARS) 15 December 2003: It is always difficult to get overtly excited about an Eric Rohmer film or make any relative comparisons with conviction - Eric Rohmer's works are almost like Jazz music, delicate in their appeal and full of irony, yet not given to the charts. The Aviator's Wife, the 1st in Rohmer's series of Comedies & Proverbs is subtle like poetry by full of the irony of urban existence. Set in his hometown Paris (as most of his films are), this is a film about a young woman's insecurity about growing old lonely, and a young man's obsession with the slightly older woman. Artfully made with a color palette that seems to reflect the hues of the lives of the characters, the film is talkative yet reflective and insecure with a certain confidence. . Mise-en-scene: The character's motivations are developed with painstaking detail in an attempt to build characters that we may grow to either love or loath, but irrespective respect as real people. I was drawn to the young man's character in particular and to his singularly obsessive personality even though he was gentle and carefree at first sight.. The older woman was so typically stereo cast as idiosyncratic, intense and detached in a manner only the French can be. In the final scene one feel for the boy when he discovers that the young girl he meets on the bus has been feeding him all along, but before we have time to react, Rohmer makes a comic joke of the situation by spinning the movie into a loop so that we end up almost where we started, except that we've got a different man that the protagonist is trailing this time around. . The Cinematography, is bland, almost dogma like (way before the birth of Dogma- this is 1981), and there is almost no emphasis at technique beyond functionality. Yet sound is used to haunting effect, with ambient sound playing a potent character. Whether this was because of poor on location sound or whether this has been used as a stylistic element to enhance the narrative is however difficult to tell.