Eric Rohmer: where to begin? How about with an offhanded masterpiece, 1984’s “Full Moon in Paris,” the most elegant of the splendid miniatures that constitute his cycle of “Comedies and Proverbs” romantic comedies? Louise (Pascale Ogier) is the bright center of his tale, an artistic young woman working in a design firm who abandons an older lover for a sequence of flings and affairs that have consequence by virtue of their very inconsequence. The slender but electric Ogier is a natural screen presence, and she beguiles her men (and the audience) with her angular, even aquiline features, her quick smile, her 1980s hair piled high, large-lidded wide eyes taking it all in with gentle bemusement and modest befuddlement. Rohmer’s wordplay is scalpel-precise, but the movement of his characters, the blocking of figures in dances of desire, figurative and literal, is also supremely graceful even as relationships explode with casual centripetal force. With Tcheky Karyo, Christian Vadim, Fabrice Luchini. 101m. Digital restoration in the 2K exhibition format. (Ray Pride)
“Full Moon in Paris” plays at Siskel July 5 and 9.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
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