La femme de l'aviateur

The French film La femme de l'aviateur (1981) was shown in the U. S. with the translated title The Aviator's Wife. It was written and directed by Éric Rohmer.

Philippe Marlaud plays François, a young man who works at the post office while studying for law school. His girlfriend, Anne, is portrayed by Marie Rivière .

The relationship between François and Anne doesn't make sense. François is a decent, friendly guy. Anne is a sour, dissatisfied, misanthrope.

All of the characters in Rohmer's films talk and talk, and that's what we get in the first third and last third of the movie.

However, the film comes to life in the middle third, when Eric meets Lucie, portrayed perfectly by Anne-Laure Meury. They talk as well, but they also have sequences in a park where something actually happens.

There's no way that a romance could be sparked. In the film, Lucie is 15. Yes, she has a great outlook on life and is very creative. Still, she's 15 and Eric is 20, so the relationship couldn't work. However, the chemistry is there, and while Meury is on screen, the movie really is effective.

Rohmer was the last of the famous French New Wave directors. All of his "Six Moral Tales" films range from excellent to superb. When he had finished the six movies, he moved to three "Comedies and Proverbs." The Aviator's Wife was the first of these.

The film has a solid IMDb rating of 7.5. I would have rated it a 10 if Rohmer had showed us more of the relationship between François and Lucie. However, that's not the movie that Rohmer wrote and directed. I gave that movie an 8.

The haunting song, ' Paris m'a seduit ' leads the viewer into the film and out of it, and it is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. We meet a young man played by Philippe Marlaud ( a tender performance sadly to be his last ) and from there in the duration of one day we meet brief acquaintances, who pass by and a woman he elusively loves. I saw it as a whole life with its morning, its day and its night. And the background is Paris; city of strangers, city of hope and pain and above all a city which seduces with promises rarely fulfilled. But Rohmer clearly passionately loves Paris and his camera magically probes what it is able to perceive and finally the crowd of the city engulfs the characters, and gently the camera withdraws. Marie Riviere clearly one of Rohmer's favourite actors is the woman loved, and her presence epitomises the changing mood of the city from laughter to tears, and what a great actor she is. Her long scene during the night of the day with Philippe Marlaud is superb and one of Rohmer's greatest. A film to watch again and again and each time there is an image that seduces. Like a favourite artist I always return to Rohmer's visions of existence and as Paris seduces so does he. Was he France's finest director ? I believe he was and in this new era we are in he should be returned to like a long lost friend forever enchanting us with a world that was once our neighbour.

The "proverb" of this film doesn't get consummated till the very end when we come to know that our philosopher hero, Francois, is arrested by his insecurities, suspicions, restlessness and LOVE. His mind always chooses the path of alienation which shapes the lonely tragedy of his love. Likewise, Anne's style of love is dictated by her own personality and Lucie's lure is by hers. It's a good Rohmerian character study!

In this bittersweet tale of disconnections and possibilities perhaps we have the essence of the art of Eric Rohmer. If you have only one Rohmer film to see, perhaps you ought to make it this one because it is so very, very French, so interestingly talkative (one of Rohmer's trademarks) and so very, very Rohmer.

The Aviator's wife, incidentally does not appear except in a photograph, but that is all to the point. Everything is a bit off stage in this intriguing drama: love especially is a bit off stage. And yet how all the participants yearn.

Marie Riviere stars as Anne who is in love with the aviator. We catch her just as she learns that he no longer wants her. He tells her that his wife is pregnant and so he must return to her. Meanwhile, she is being pestered by Francois (Philippe Marlaud) who is in love with her. However he is a little too young and "clinging." Truly she is not interested. It is a disconnection as far as she is concerned.

The heart of the film occurs when Francois is following the aviator and the blond woman. Francois is obsessive and jealous. He follows because...it isn't clear and he really doesn't know why except that this is the man that Anne loves. As it happens while he is following them he runs into a pretty fifteen-year-old (Lucie, played fetchingly by Anne-Laure Meury) who imagines that he is following her. She turns it into a game, and again we have a disconnection. She is fun and cute and full of life, but he cannot really see her because he pines for Anne. Meanwhile Anne of course is pining for the aviator.

Rohmer's intriguing little joke is about the aviator's wife. Who is she and what is she like? We can only imagine. And this is right. The woman imagines what the other woman is like, but never really knows unless she meets her.

Maire Riviere is only passably pretty, but she has gorgeous limbs and beautiful skin and a hypnotic way about her, which Rohmer accentuates in the next to the last scene in her apartment with Francois. We follow the talk between the two, of disconnection and off center possibilities, of friends and lovers with whom things are tantalizingly not exactly right and yet not tragically wrong. As we follow this talk we see that Anne's heart is breaking or has broken--and all the while we see her skin as Francois does. She wants to be touched, but not by him. And then she allows him to touch her, but only in comforting gestures, redirecting his hands away from amorous intent. And then she goes out with a man in whom she really has no interest.

Such is life, one might say. Rohmer certainly thinks so.

One thing I love about Rohmer's films is that you cannot predict where they will go. Another thing is his incredible attention to authentic detail about how people talk and how they feel without cliché and without any compromise with reality--Rohmer's reality of course, which I find is very much like the reality that I have experienced.

See this for Eric Rohmer whose entre into the world of cinema is substantial, original, and wonderfully evocative of what it is like to live in the modern world with an emphasis on personal relationships and love.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

It's always fun watching Rohmer's heroes and heroins develop their characters in a 90-min of story-telling.

The aviator Christian shows up talking for 5 minutes in the beginning, and then he turns to just a subject that we all audience, including François, have to know him from how Anne will describe him and how Lucie will envision him.

The audience can only see aviator's wife once from a photo Anne posses, but till we see it, including François, we learn all of our assumption made from Lucie's smart guessing will need to be re-assumed otherwise.

The last five minutes of the movie indicates François will get himself to be going after Lucie, for he is made believe Lucie may not seem as straightforward as he felt. His role somehow imitates to Christian now.

So much fun with so minimal resources of moving making. Solute Eric.