La boulangère de Monceau

This is a short film by Eric Rohmer--and the first of his six so-called 'Morality Tales'. Unlike some of his later films, this one seems much more like a typical French New Wave film--with its unusual camera work (looking more like an amateur film at times), use of natural settings and unusual style.

"The Bakery Girl of Monceau" begins with a young man noticing a pretty lady as he walked to college. He's interested in her but they don't know each other at all--and he's working up the courage to talk to her. Eventually, he bumps into her and they talk a bit. He asks her out for coffee but she declines--but tells him she'd be willing in the future. The problem, however, is that for some time he returns to his daily route and doesn't see her. Instead, however, he becomes interested in a girl who works in a bakery. What will become of this and will the original girl return?

While I know that many love Rohmer and New Wave films, this one seems like it's more a practice film than a finished product. It's incredibly mundane--to the point of almost being banal. Because of this, it's not for the casual viewer--and a film that is really impossible to rate.

Eric Rohmer's The Bakery Girl of Monceau isn't a very great film- the chief liability is Barbet Schroeder, the 'Young Man' as he's called, who isn't expressive much at all, almost stilted when he has to say his lines outside of the narration which is when he does fine- but it's one that has some very solid ideas about attachment to one who is more of an unknown, and possibly unattainable. Unlike My Night at Maud's, however, Rohmer doesn't infuse a religious context, but rather that of the anxious and romantic youth, of a guy who has nothing else to do outside of his minor class work than to find a possible one-true-love walking along a particular street of Paris. He waits all the time for a woman he was at first shy to introduce himself to, and doesn't see her. His habit of getting a cookie or two from the local bakery leads him to the bakery girl, a wide-eyed girl of (only!) 18, who doesn't go out with boys but may make an exception for the charming young man.

Meanwhile, Rohmer lays on the moral dilemma- or sort of a put-on of a moral dilemma, which actually makes it more interesting- of this character while making it a surprisingly cool film directorial-wise. As great as he can be with his dialog, until this I haven't taken Rohmer as too much on the scale of being AS great as a director (not bad at all, to be sure, though a slight peg less than his old buddies Truffaut and Godard). But with this small-scale story and totally on-location scenes, he has some striking moments in just showing the young man walking on the street- jump cuts, quite amazing even in such rough form- and in the bakery, where the slightest bits of a close-up or an image of a cookie dropping mark as something significant. There's even a moment or two when the young man is with his friend early on where the camera speed seems to come close to looking like a silent film.

At only 23 minutes long, this isn't a very complex little film, and it ends sort of at a 'that's that' kind of way, but it sets a very good precedent for the rest of the 'Moral tales' to follow. It's the kind of short I'd probably like to watch again if I have a half hour to kill in a random moment in the future.

The first of Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" collection is lovely, twenty-five minute short about a young man who must choose between the girl of his longing and another, more attainable girl. The young man in question narrates this short film. On his daily journeys, he encounters a beautiful girl named Sylvie on a regular basis. He begins to fall for her and even stalks her to a point. When he goes several days without seeing her, the young man in question begins to search for her. In his search, he encounters a small bakery. The young man begins a daily routine of entering the bakery for a cookie and the young girl who works there begins to develop feelings for him. Though the young man resists his own feelings at first, he finally decides to ask her out. Trouble results, though, when he runs into Sylvie on that very day.

The Girl at the Monceau Bakery, the first Rohmer film I'd seen, is pretty impressive. In its short (about twenty-five minute) running time, this film manages to weave a story with very believable conflict and quick resolution. This is a very simple film and does not pull any punches. The young narrator is a realistic character: he's a college student with girls on the brain. He isn't mature enough to realize that his own decisions affect others just as much as they affect him. The young man is rather selfish and the moral dilemma that he faces stems from that. The acting here is not bad, but far from first rate. It is, however, a good early achievement from Rohmer. Watching this, I am intrigued to dig deeper into his body of work.

9/10

An interesting short film by Eric Rohmer. A university student in Paris falls in love with a girl with whom he encounters about everyday in the street but cannot find the courage to talk.

The film mostly consists of the narration of intimate thoughts of the man while he is chasing the girl in the streets. To console himself in her absence, he begins flirting with another girl in a bakery. His thoughts become even more complicated. The narrative style is so impressive that you find yourself reading the protagonist's mind.

Especially in the early sixties, streets of Paris serve here as settings for a cute character study about a young man in search of dating a girl whom he doesn't know at all. Acting is not very good, or maybe too old fashioned. Actors don't play this way anymore today, especially non professional ones. Michèle Girardon is as beautiful as she was in HATARI, two years earlier. Such a shame that she disappeared at only 36 years old.