Le genou de Claire

Well, I came across this movie while reading Roger Ebert's Awake in the dark and thankfully was able to get a chance to get a hold of Éric Rohmer's masterpiece Claire's Knee. I hadn't read Ebert's review (usually I watch a movie before going through the reviews) so was not sure what was I going into - haven't watched any trailer as well so I was not sure what this would be about, but with my experience with foreign movies I was sure it would be good and I guessed by the name that it suggested something like Lolita or many other movies based on such abnormal (sometimes immoral) desires.

So, when you start with the movie you are somewhat aware where this is going - the expected storyline basis the title- but soon comes to these well-performed characters and while getting engrossed in the discussions between characters on love, choices, life, etc. you get more understanding on the way each of them sees the world - what they desire? what they like? and why they do so? The great part with such discussion was that first, it didn't go into a preachy tone- that x is right and y is not, each of them had their views which they justified by their past or by their behavior - it reminded me of the Before trilogy and, second, while listening to such great lines, one start thinking and contemplating of one's own stand on the topic of love, moral & desires.

There is a scene where the protagonist talks about a notion where he as a person do not have desires on the beauty aspect of women but because of a character his friends ask him to play, he started thinking like that character, and somewhere knowingly or unknowingly he too as a person starts to have those desires. The beauty of this notion is that this happens to the viewer as well, you don't look at claire's knee or her in that sense- but because the movie tells you that this is important - this is beautiful - and to be desired you look for it in that passionate way. You too, play the character in the movie.

In "les Liaisons Dangereuses", Isabelle de Merteuil defies Sebastien de Valmont to deflower Cécile de Volanges, a young girl, then to seduce and to reject Marie de Tourvel, a married woman. If he succeeds in accomplishing it, the bounty will be Isabelle herself.

Nothing as harsh in "Le genou de Claire", but there is the similar thematic about a gamble. Jérome (Jean Claude Brialy) meets Aurora (Aurora Cornu), an old friend (lover?). Aurora, a writer, is in search of a new story for a possible novel. She offers Jérome a gamble in the form of a love game ("marivaudage" as we say in French) involving Laura (Beatrice Romand), his neighbors daughter, who is obviously attracted by him, and, later, the Laura's sister Claire (Laurence de Monaghan) whose knee fascinates Jérome.

Unlike "The Dangerous Liaisons", not a single ounce of violence or dramatic events, everything will be just metaphorical: a half-stolen kiss and a stroked knee (and no excessive promised reward from Aurora). "Le Genou de Claire" is a filmed essay about friendship, love, sensuality, desire, fantasies and their incoherences.

As usual with Eric Rohmer, thoughts and emotions have to be said and not just shown, therefore everything is explicitly said by the characters. This is the reason why the Rohmer's movies seem unrealistic and talkative to the unprepared audiences. Some say that Rohmer is a writer who uses a camera instead a pen, but that primacy of the dialog doesn't prevent Rohmer to use the actor's play, the camera, the set's and costumes colors in a very accurate way. In fact, he is a real film director with a very personal style of cinematic language.

The cast: A Jean-Claude Brialy bearded like a pirate plays a charming young diplomat and he delivers his lines with natural ease and a sensual chemistry between him and the beautiful Aurora Cornu (a Romanian poet, novelist, and actress). Unfortunately the Romanian actress doesn't seem at ease with those long lines in French, and, in my humble opinion, she overplays quite a bit.

Beatrice Romand, 18 years old at that time, in her first true part in a movie, plays the 16 yo Laura. She steals the show, the light and the camera, and in view of some mind-blowing shots, for example in the Jérome's room, she seems to have been an obvious delicacy to light up for the great master Néstor Almendros, in charge of the cinematography. When the movie was released in 1970, the French medias became suddenly obsessed for a while by this very young actress, her exotic beauty and riveting charm. The clever and fizzy Béatrice appeared everywhere in the magazines and on the 2 (not more than two in 1970!) channels of the French TV! Then the fame faded away. The industry of entertainment prefers the blonds... The Beatrice's fans (I am a Beatrice's fan!) love Rohmer's "Le Beau Marriage", "Conte d'Automne" and Claude Faraldo's "Themroc", a situationist weird movie.

Laurence de Monaghan, in contrast with the dark haired and milky skinned Beatrice Romand, plays Claire, a tanned blond of cold beauty, in fact a perfect arrogant and stuck-up chick with perfect body, legs and knee, the famous knee, object of Jérome's desire.

For the fans of Fabrice Luccini, his short part as the young Vincent pontificating about girls is a "collector", not to be missed! By the way, still for his fans, not to be missed too there is his hilarious (and sulfurous) part in Walerian Borowczyk's "Contes Immoraux" (Immoral Tales) 2 years later. Keep in mind that "Le Genou de Claire" forms a part of Rohmer's "Contes Moraux" (Moral Tales)...

Time has passed, "Le Genou de Claire" remains amongst the Rohmer's most sensuous movie, and Claire's knee keeps on fascinating.

one of the most beautiful movie by Rohmer. when I saw this film for the first time i was in Brasil (Saao Paulo) and the movie was whistled at the end of the performance by the assistance. In fact, I found the movie a little bit ridiculous and native. i reviewed this movie on TV, a few years later, in France, and was then enthusiastic. I've since become a fan of Rohmer and I've seen nearly all of his films.

There's a lot to enjoy in Claire's Knee: the relaxed easy pace, the charming characters, the warm and insightful conversations, the stunning scenery of the French Alps.

Unfortunately I can't find any way to identify or empathize with a world that is so comfortable, so boring, so unambiguous, and ultimately, so superficial. None of the characters seem to work; no-one ever seems anxious or troubled; nothing particularly bad or good happens, or seems likely to ever happen. It's a film of low-level emotions, and low stakes -- for the characters, and for the viewers.

In this bland world, the only question of importance becomes: will the main character, a man of 35 or older, seduce one of the two teenage beauties? No particularly momentous moral calculus is involved, and ultimately the stakes were so low that I could not bring myself to care. The character is good man, or he's a lecher, or he's neither...but I feel Rohmer did not give me any reason why any of this might matter.

Claire's Knee is a hymn of praise to French charm, bourgeois comforts, and inconsequential easy pleasures. If that's your thing, enjoy yourself with this film. Me, I'll be over there in the corner, watching films by directors that ask harder questions.

I think the moral point of "Claire's Knee" (probably not Rohmer's) is that Jerome's conversion from womanizer to a serious and challenging relationship with Lucinde, is flawed. And that the flaw is his invoking the escape hatch of an "open marriage." He (or his new persona) half believes that he will not use it, but the accidental presence of two enticing teenagers at his Lake Annecy vacation sets the stage for his self-delusion, his devaluation of intimacy, and for the resurfacing of his sensuous ways.

For "open marriage" as a cover for "adult," is really another form of ambivalence and duplicity. What it means to Jerome is that the door of puerile fantasy is at his fingertips. Thus in the rarified air of Annecy, in the flow of summer, thin, mod teenagers Laura and Claire become not only sex objects to Jerome, but potential love partners--one at 16, assessed as adult enough, and the other 18, assessed as legal. We see them together, he invariably clothed for late autumn weather, they for mid-summer. In the emotional cat and mouse games that ensue, Laura and Claire are, to him, mere temptresses, and perhaps part of a self-test, and not, in any sense, young women with lives of their own & chosen boy friends. Instead, their boundaries begin to blur under his voyeurism, his not so subtle acts of aggression, his familiar touching, fondling, pointed remarks, and prescriptive suggestions. He offers them no affection, no friendship, and no communication.

How could it be otherwise given their demure youth, beauty and his permissive "open marriage," and when possessing them is his goal--pederasty and fetishism his means. But his fling with inspiring youth having fulfilled his KNEEDS, he can now discard Laura and Claire without in any way having deviated from his new mature male role-- as willfully possessive as he's been. Whether Lucinde has actually signed off on the "open" deal or not, she, despite her maturity, worldly success, and her sculptured character, must be no more than a symbol to Jerome, extracted for his KNEEDS, which must come first before commitment and support.