La boulangère de Monceau

Law student Barbet Schroeder meets Michèle Girardon in the street and makes a sort-of date for another time. She vanishes for a while. While he wanders looking for her, he flirts with bakery shop assistant Claudine Soubrier in one of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales.

It's a look at a small district in Paris, between the markets and shops, and doesn't seem to have much point other than that youth is simultaneously fickle and steadfast... and likes a bit of pastry. In fact, that pastry side becomes a bit of a metaphor for Mlle Soubrier in the mind of Schroeder, who narrates what's going on his own mind.

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

Wonderful start for Rohmer's 6 moral tales which defined French New Wave. This is honestly one of his best movies, absolutely magnificent piece of art!

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.

The first film of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, The Girl at the Monçeau Bakery, only twenty-three minutes in length, centers on the dilemma of a young man (Barbet Schroeder) forced to choose between women. The young man, a law student, is infatuated with Sylvie (Michele Girardon), a girl he sees walking on the street each morning and thinks about how to introduce himself. After making a brief connection, the girl suddenly disappears and he spends his days looking for her on the streets of Paris. His search takes him to a nearby bakery where he buys one cookie each day and begins to notice Jacqueline (Claudine Soubrier), the bakery counter girl.

She is shy and withdrawn but when she finally agrees to go out with him, the first woman reappears and he is faced with a choice between a girl he hardly knows but loves and a promising relationship with a girl that has taken to him. He arrives at his choice but it is done coldly and with little regard for the feelings of the rejected woman, rationalizing this by telling himself, "My choice had been above all, moral. One represented truth, the other a mistake, or that was how I saw it at the time." The film, though a first effort, offers believable characters and conveys a strong sense of location, providing a loving glimpse at Paris in the 60s.