LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

by Kevin Koehler

The last of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales begins with a man, Frederic (Bernard Verley) watching his wife step out of the shower. She continues to towel herself off, glancing back over her shoulder at him the doorway. It's the kind of genuine, uncontrived eroticism Frederic would find sexy if he weren't married to her.

"Since my marriage," says Frederic, "I find all women attractive. In their mundane tasks, I accord them that mystery I once denied almost all of them." Frederic spends a lot of time observing the opposite sex (for someone with a presumably demanding occupation, we see him doing surprisingly little work), fantasizing about what it would be like to engage these ladies with flirtatious conversation. In this invented world, he is the sort passionate, dangerous figure he imagines beautiful women find irresistible. It's a marked contrast to the person he actually is, this being a Paris lawyer who stays home most nights, reads books on the train, and wears the same style of turtleneck every day.

In an unusually impulsive act, Frederic allows himself to be talked into buying a plaid dress shirt by an attractive salesgirl. "The salesgirl was very clever. She pretended not to give a damn." It won't be the last time in the picture a character gets what they want by feigning disinterest in it (the converse is also true). The shirt isn't particularly becoming, truth be told - it's too tight and Frederic looks out of place in it. But he wears it anyway. It's not long afterwards that a woman named Chloe (Zouzou) reintroduces herself to his life.

Often what makes films great are the questions they pose, not the ones they solve. Love in the Afternoon is full of questions. Can a man love two women at the same time? Where is the divide between innocent flirtation and adultery (it's not as simple as I'd imagine many think)? Is infidelity always morally licentious? Is monogamy by its very nature unsustainable without a certain degree of dishonesty, not to mention an elaborately fantastical interior life?

Love in the Afternoon respects its audience enough not to give any easy answers, allowing us to come to our conclusions about the characters and their motivations. Indeed, the picture is refreshingly free of any kind of musical score, the hack filmmaker's bludgeoning tool to beat viewers into lockstep submission. Rohmer, per usual, takes what could be tiresome and formulaic (Rohmer himself has used the central conceit of the romantically-conflicted man in numerous other films, notably My Night at Maud's) and gives it a new life, a new perspective, and a new understanding. When Chloe reclines spectacularly, a vision, beckoning us from across the room, there is no reductionist moralizing, no wagging of fingers. There is just a beautiful woman, a married man, a bed, and ourselves.

Interesting footnote: Actress/model/musician Zouzou was an icon of the swinging 60s in Europe, engaging in a fairly public romance with Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Problems with heroin saw Zouzou's professional life take a rather ignominious downturn, culminating with her incarceration during the early 90s.

© Pretentious Musings. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.