4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle

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.

Do you like experimental films? Do you like films that are amusing and curious to watch, but, not very particular to have a well made star to end story? Then, this film is for you. It's a story about two girls in 4 sections. Interesting movie, and I liked it.

I read in a short critique of Rohmer recently the perfect sentence to describe his work and how to approach it: "It is when we let Rohmer's irony (the incongruence of his characters) be a seed of self-reflection within ourselves that his films take on a transcendent dimension." The transcendent dimension that all great works of art have is there but you have to let the irony become a seed of self-reflection first, you have to actively participate, hence the reason why many people find Rohmer's films boring. They don't even realize what they're missing and don't want to know! The closer a Rohmer film is to soap opera on the surface and the less offbeat it is the more money it makes (the recent "Autumn's Tale" made a very impressive 2 million dollars on the art-house circuit but I, for one, thought it was just o.k.), but ALL of them have depth if you look for it.

Rohmer's films slowly and quietly build into elaborate structures of subtly hilarious sophistication which get better with each viewing (letting the irony really take root and become a seed of self-reflection). They are all (on the surface at least) very similar: done low-budget but with quietly superb and magnificent cinematography, maximum conversation, minimum hi-jinks or action, relying on subtlety and the viewer's undivided attention and engagement to reveal their deep humor and depth. All of Rohmer's films make fun of human folly and vanity in a way that's entirely unprecedented, true-to-life, and unique in the cinema. Critics have labeled the term 'classicist' on his head but I don't know of any filmmakers or artists, outside of some of the great satirical novelists of the 19th century, who have approached their subject in this way. There is an incredible amount of pure cinema in Rohmer but done in a way that's completely invisible when the viewer's not seeking it out, absolutely devoid of any tendencies to show-off and draw attention to itself.

"Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle" is about two young girls, one a surrealistic-painter from the country, the other-- a law-student from Paris , both very pretty and charming, who strike up a friendship and go through a few neurotic and enlightening incidents together both in the city and the country: trying to wake up at the moment of absolute silence every morning when night-birds stop chirping and morning birds are still asleep; dealing with a rude Paris cafe waiter; dealing with pan-handlers trying to hustle them for change; moral dilemmas about shoplifting; selling Reinette's painting without her having to speak one word to the gallery owner because she's sticking to a vow of silence she made the day before; etc. The Very Funny and valuable results are captured by Rohmer in his trademark, meditative, and un-intrusive style. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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.