As 4 Aventuras de Reinette e Mirabelle

The more Rohmer I see, the greater my appreciation and love grows for him. Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle is a wonderful film about a Parisian girl and a girl from the country who meet, become friends, and then move in together in an apartment in Paris. The film consists of little more than the two girls living their lives, sharing their philosophies, and acting on those philosophies. The two lead performances, by Joelle Miquel (Reinette) and Jessica Forde (Mirabelle) are outstanding. And then there are a lot of colorful - but not too colorful - side characters in the four tales, like the extraordinarily rude waiter (Philippe Laudenbach) and the art dealer (Fabrice Luchini, the star of my favorite Rohmer film, the incomparably unique Perceval le gallois). This is a film for people who love people, their thoughts, and their talk. 10/10.

4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle (1987) was written and directed by Éric Rohmer. Rohmer had some down time while directing the film Le Rayon vert, and used that time to make this interesting movie.

Joëlle Miquel plays Reinette, who is spending the summer in an isolated cottage near her rural home . Jessica Forde portrays Mirabelle, a Parisian who is vacationing in the area for the summer. The two women become friends. In the Fall, they share an apartment in Paris, where Reinette attends art school, and Mirabelle attends the Sorbonne.

Rohmer has divided the movie into four parts. The first part is when the two women meet. The other three parts are incidents that occur to one or both of them.

As in all of Rohmer's films, dialog is the very important. The women talk and argue throughout the film. Unlike many of Rohmer's films, things happen to them and those things are the basis of their discussions. (Usually, his characters just talk about relationships.)

The events include encounters with a shoplifter, a rude waiter, homeless people, and the owner of an art gallery.

The film is colorful, interesting, and easy to watch. It's not a masterpiece, but it's worth finding and watching. 4 aventures has a solid IMDb rating of 7.5. I thought it was even better then that, and rated it 9.

Adventure one sees townie Mirabelle, who has never really had cause to take time to observe nature, experience a series of minor revelations about country life. Experiences that, curiously, she doesn't seem to carry back home into the Parisian episodes. Indeed the first episode feels like a film-apart, largely because it's not referred back to. The remaining adventures concern how Reinette's fixed ideas cause her headaches in the city. While it's easy to have a set of unwaivering morals and manners living a more solitary life in the country, it's not as easy in 'the big smoke'. Discovering Parisians have a much more fluid moral compass causes Reinette horror and the viewer a degree of amusement. Indeed Episode Two is Rohmer doing, of all things, broad comedy - complete with a Fawlty-esque waiter. The director also diverts from his well-trodden path with the absence of romance from this movie (accordingly the film storms through the Bechdel test). I also loved the fact there also isn't the shadow of parental influence, the church or a peer group which sometimes operate, with varying degrees of success, in Rohmer's work. The girls really only have each other as a soundboard and that makes the new friendship between these unlikely flatmates all the more engaging.

I'm a huge Rohmer fan. I've seen all of the Moral Tales, the Comedies & Proverbs and the Tales of the Four Seasons. I dislike this particular film tremendously. Along with "Rendez-Vous in Paris," it represents Rohmer at his worst... moralistic, pedantic and amateurish. I've seen better summer camp skits than the bit at the cafe, the scene at the train station and the business at the art gallery. Frankly, with the exception of "The Blue Hour", the project is a wash. Joelle Miquel and Philippe Laudenbach deliver terrible, over-the-top performances, and even the great Fabrice Luchini seems foolish and out of place. Jessica Forde is passable as the jaded town rat. The only stand out (at least in a positive sense) is Marie Riviere who, as always, is entirely believable.

I'm not sure why this project got such a high IMDb rating. I can only think that people like the two-name films ("Celine and Julie", "Fanny and Alexander", etc.) because they sound whimsically playful. Rohmer has an excellent sense of humor (e.g., Conte d'ete, Boyfrends and Girlfriends, etc.), but this is not a delightful little caprice. With the exception of the first 20 minutes or so, it's a student project. Note also the horrendous original electronic music. Rohmer often refrains entirely from the use of music, and this is one case where he should have shown his usual restraint.

Reinette and Mirabelle are two young women. Reinette lives in the countryside, Mirabelle in Paris. They meet during a holiday of Mirabelle in the country, when Reinette helps her to repair the tube of her bicycle and shows her the beauties of nature and in particular the 'blue hour'.

This is the classic meeting of the "city mouse" and the "country mouse". While the country mouse knows such things as how to cook and fix bicycles, she does not concern herself with such high-minded concepts as "ethnology". In her domain, she is the queen.

But we also see stories here where it pays to be a smart city mouse... through deception and cunning, you can get what you want in ways the innocent, sincere person never can. The interactions with both the waiter and the art dealer are just so good and really make this film a treasure.