L'ami de mon amie

A young woman, Blanche (the lovely Emmanuelle Chaulet), works in the City Hall of a trendy New Town near Paris (somewhat to his discredit, Rohmer's films always occurs in middle class and upper middle class milieus, never in working class neighborhoods or in the immigrants building projects). Having recently arrived there, Blanche lives quite a lonely life, until she becomes friends with another young woman, Lea (Sophie Renoir), through which she met her boyfriend Fabien (Eric Viellard), and an acquaintance of the couple, Alexandre (François-Eric Gendron). Basically, the movie follows the time honored plot of exchange of relationships. A is with B, and C with D, but then A will start a liaison with D, which will make C jealous, and would start going with B in revenge and so forth. The title in French is a pun: the boyfriend of my friend would (could) become my boyfriend. Rohmer is known to be a political conservative, but here he is hardly a moralist, since he examines the sexual freedom of today's youth without condemning it. The movie is slow and talky, but these characters are believable and appealing (if somewhat shallow and a bit better looking than ordinary).

Eric Rohmer was more than one of the directors who formed the French New Wave. He also wrote a lot of surveys and articles about cinema, especially about his favorite director, F.W. Murnau, out who he wrote his dissertation. His first article that got published in the year 1948 was titled (directly translated:) "Film, art of space." In the year 1962 Eric Rohmer published his academic survey called: "The construction of space in Murnau's Faust." While reading about his surveys and articles, it's no surprise that space in Rohmer's films seems to be as important as the plot.

Eric Rohmer's career started with problems, and it wasn't going forward. But when he got off the ground, he proceeded more purposefully than anyone. When the new wave era ended in 1964, the directors of it started eventually finding their own path. Eric Rohmer started his series of six film, The Moral Tales and continued with Comedies & Proverbs in the 1980's. L'ami de mon amie (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend) is sixth and the last one in the series. It builds around the proverb: "My friends' friends are my friends." The comical situations emerge between two women who unintentionally swap boyfriends.

Two women suddenly meet while having lunch. One of the two women is Blanche, she is a skinny, uptight young woman, who is still searching for herself. The other is Lea, she's self-confident and a very feminine person. They both have something going on with men, so the main characters have their opponents; shy Fabien and a true player, Alexandre.

While trying to figure out the space of My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, I can't miss the futuristic city the characters live in. I got the feeling that Eric Rohmer isn't trying to tell a story of four specific people who live in France. To me he's telling about all the people living in these suburbs of Paris. The space of a futuristic city, the city full of postmodern architecture without any past. This theme of the milieu leads to rootlessness. The people of this city have no past, each of them like to analyze and talk about themselves. But none of them really know who they are.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend offered these kind of things for me. In addition to its intelligent narrative, it is full of hilarious comical situations. Eric Rohmer builds four very interesting characters which will take you on board.

"My friends' boyfriends are my boyfriends."

The French film L'ami de mon amie (1987) was written and directed by Éric Rohmer. It was shown with two English titles: Boyfriends and Girlfriends and My Girlfriend's Boyfriend.

The film has five protagonists: Emmanuelle Chaulet as Blanche, Anne-Laure Meury as Adrienne, Eric Viellard as Fabien, François-Eric Gendron as Alexandre, and Sophie Renoir as Lea. (Yes--she's related to the painter and all of the cinematic Renoir family.)

Blanche has moved to a new apartment in Cergy-Pontoise, a trendy new town near Paris. It's there that she meets Lea, who introduces her to Alexandre. Blanche is attracted to Alexandre, but he already has a girlfriend--Adrienne.

It takes a while for the friends to sort themselves out. While the sorting is taking place, they talk and talk--Rohmer's speciality.

And, of course, Rohmer had an eye for attractive actors. All of the women are beautiful, both of the men are handsome, and everyone desires someone else's lover.

This movie is the final installment of in Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series. The film has a solid IMDB rating of 7.5. I enjoyed it, and rated it 8.

P. S. In 1988, Sophie Renoir was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her part in this movie.

I love Rohmer's films. Even more those in the cycle Comedies and Proverbs. They're dissertations about love, friendship and the fine line between the two. In Rohmer's world, love and what leads to it is comparable to an algebraic formula: A is to C what B is to A. Again in this one, a lot of interesting dialog, in which every line incites us to reflect. Like this one: "Maybe it's because I didn't love her anymore that I went back with her". In fact, dialog and interaction between the characters are the only thing that matter in this movie. Everything else his not important. And as for characters, there is just a few, so you get to know them. You know what they want and how they react when they get it.

Out of 100, I gave it 76. That's good for **½ out of ****. Seen at home, in Toronto, on November 26th, 2004.

Rohmer used 4 or even 5 character affair, dip with the scent of peculiar triangles.

Unlike other French New Waves directors, who vernally succeed. Rohmer dug his bravura technique at the late year, and also inherited the mature, non-jocular, less-mechanical (or too dry to be mechanical) style.

He tried using these 5 individuals with the most simple, direct, lucid cinematography, which included minimalism settings capered with his iconic use of color, and no fancy editing which made the picture quite bland, deconstruct the story of love.

The color is beguiling, the Emmanuelle Chaulet is simply divine. The pace is slow, but the romance is overt. I'm just not such deep in love as the film did, need to be rewatched when people fall in Descarts' unrequited love.