Distributor: Budapest Film Kft.
 Melvil Poupaud, Aurélia Nolin 50 KByte |
Hungarian viewers who have not been pampered with
Eric Rohmer's (the veteran director of French films) works by
the Hungarian distributors and for some reason have not read Bikácsy
Gergely's critiques either, on seeing the film Conte d'été
hardly believe that the director is in his 70s. It is impossible,
we say, that at this age anybody can know so much about the Youth.
Just because we are older by only one or two decades, how susceptible
we are to forget about the blessed years of our searching, when
we did not find or we did not want to find acceptable, expedient
forms of relationships and we looked for something different:
Platonic love, words without hidden meaning, in which that mysterious
something could manifest itself, which can be called our higher
self, if once found. But society's attitudes and efforts to avoid
these did not allow the hidden secret to prevail. Slowly we had
to get conditioned to accepting ourselves as being susceptible
to happenstance and clumsy, day long conversations, awkward gestures
and unavoidable misunderstandings. How much disappointment do
we need to experience and how many times must we blunder before
we accept convention and dress in clothes sewn for us and accept
their given measurements. We are slowly reduced to ashes from
huge clouds of smoke and end up as cigarette butts.
The Conte d'été is similar to other Rohmer films: actors and actresses speak a lot and nothing much happens. It is summer again, but this time we are in San Malo, a small holiday resort in Bretagne, where Gaspard is spending his last free and easy summer holiday before starting a job in September. A fiend of his lent him the room, to which he only goes in the evenings to play the guitar and to compose music. In the daytime he rambles alone or swims in the sea. All his time is consumed with expectation. He did not arrange a date with the loved one, Lena, he got only a promise from her to look him up sometime as chance would have it. He is absorbed in his dreams. His noble appearance, yet sombre and melancholic reticence awakes a waitress' curiosity. They walk together on the beach. So as not to be bored, Margo introduces him to Solen, but before anything can happen between them Lena appears and the young man whose head is full of miserable loneliness suddenly realises that he has a choice among three girls. Margo is kind and sympathetic, and she understands too much what is going on inside him. Solen is an attractive beauty, but she is not very intelligent, and she has principles! Lena is idealistic: she is not as beautiful or attractive as seen through Gaspard's eyes. He runs away from his emotional chaos and the situation in which he has to make a decision. He leaves the girls, the summer in Bretagne and instead goes to his friend to buy a tape recorder. |
 Melvil Poupaud, Amanda Langlet 76 KByte |
That's the story. It is without any real drama, there is neither climax nor ending with a bang-the situation remains unresolved. It is an everyday story without shocking tragedy or catharsis, only as much as that which can happen to us and be forgotten. And if a spectacular bay or a cliff at sometime bring the film to mind we think of that pathetic boy with shame, who did not even have enough strength to fight for one night of love. And whom amongst us can remember with pleasure our naïve sudden attacks of sincerity, or the spastic rejection of the notorious tricks of conquest and passion, from which ever new games are invented without any clear roles and full of incalculable consequences. There is no winner and no loser as there is no victim - so no victory can be enjoyed and no defeat experienced. We are annoyed by failed aspirations and we are made sad by unfulfilled hopes. But the sun is shining and there is no reason for being upset.
This nothing is everything. However unbelievable it is for the contemporary who is accustomed to tight, exciting action and fatalism: c'est la vie, such is life. How could Rohmer peel off the dramaturgy of actions as an artistic form from the film, as this is so much needed by the viewer? Who knows, but by all means this required more talent than fashionable twists of form. Yet, all the talking without doing is not boring in the slightest. As opposed to a snobbish outpouring of the soul, seeing these characters we do not close our eyes and listening to their monologues we do not close our ears. In summary there is a similarity to the excitement of a Dostoievsky novel, because of its self-examination, and the panoramic background merged with the fidgeting figures coming the spell of confession. And if our eyes are getting tired from this outpouring there is the majestic sea with its slow ebb and flow. How many changes of rhythm there are in just one scene. Gaspard and his fellows wander restlessly in front of the calm surface of the water. The camera can hardly follow their unceasing erratic twists and turns. This frantic restlessness calms down only when their silhouettes become adhered to the sand. Suddenly they slow down, their walk becomes more rhythmical, they stop or lie down. In this way they are able to adjust themselves to (leaving the illusion out of consideration) the real essence of the surrounding nature. Captions sign the passing of time. This old fashioned, time sequence technique is frowned upon nowadays, but there is no need for special techniques , since the flow of time is unimportant. The attractive timelessness of this generation is nothing other than outside of time as is their situation outside of space. They could be anywhere, the projected environment is only a portrayal of their inner searching. Their world is void of any landmarks, their memories have not yet burdened the countryside. It is only now that they gather imprinted experiences. After ten or twenty years with these experiences they will be guided by. Their illusory self confidence along their trodden path between avoided spaces.
“To be or not to be, that is the question," and it is the question for Gaspard as well, whilst deciding who he will become. Which of the prospects facing him will he grasp and which of them will he leave unexploited whether by compulsion or choice. Nothing is sure, settled relationships and affairs are missing. However the boy has weighed anchor, he can meet any girl and he may even be liked, or possibly be ditched. He has no idea which girl suits him: the flirtatious Solen, who is up to anything, the sensitive Margo, or the hysterical Lena. At the beginning of August when he sails away in style it is still summer, so anything can happen. In spite of this we feel that the story is (if there ever was one) over the sweetness of life cannot be tasted again, and we cannot be surprised at our own hesitation, because the repetition would be charmless and artificial. Our heroes are far from being affected or displaying unsavoury behaviour. They lose their innocence without doing anything.
According to his famous aphorism, the word is to hide thoughts and pictures are for revealing them. We are accustomed to the opposite of them by our contemporaries. Rohmer's purism cuts to the quick. There are no spectacular actions, symbols are disregarded, the effects are not ostentatious, he does not want to shock us. Films of this decade try to lie that life consists of unusual and special moments. Rohmer thinks that life is that which is special and unusual and not only certain moments of it. That means that our heroic acts do not lift us to the heights but on the contrary it is the acts that gain their deserved pomp through us. As a very characteristic consequence of it is the screen being highly illuminated so the faces are somewhat translucid and over lit. Instead of misty dimness and gloomy darkness we are afforded calculable perspective, but there is no sign of crazy scenes of the 20th century. Trouble and sadness arises from our hesitation, it breaks forth from the immeasurable depths of the soul and not from violence without. Everything is in the right place if we are too. The Conte d'été is a charming film.
