I really like the films of Eric Romer, one of the leading representatives of the French New Wave. I think they're for the amateur. All movies are for amateurs, but these are very specific.
Have you read anything from Iris Murdoch? I think Romer would have done a great job of filming her novels.
The film is full of long and sometimes lengthy dialogues and monologues. Sometimes to the point of absurdity. Devotion to philosophy.
Beautiful bodies. And this is the ever-French, and especially Romerian, "walking on the edge of what is allowed" - the absence of intimate scenes, but very beautiful hints of the feelings and desires of the characters. All of these are typical of all Romer films.
The film is about the fact that each person chooses something in life - someone enjoys love victories as such and their number, preferring to remain alone in his heart.
Someone needs an eternal search for himself.
Someone is condescending to others, likes to play with others until life plays an evil (or moralistic?) joke with himself.
And all these people meet in one place. This meeting and the time spent together will remain in their memory forever. Have they changed? I don't think so. But the fact that the time spent together made them think about something important - definitely.
All of Romer’s films are moralistic in one way or another. When you watch the movie, you think: I wonder if the author wanted us to relax and not think, to give ourselves and our thoughts to the life flow on the screen? Or do we think deeply about what we see? Or did they not think, but only felt this unhurried sultry atmosphere?
If you want to see something from Romer, I would definitely recommend starting with this film.
And also a film about the fact that smart people like to think that they are smarter than others.
10 out of 10
This aesthetically attractive picture of Eric Romer naturally seduces the viewer with the erotic emancipation of the main character, accustomed to freedom-loving pastime in the company of men, among whom she is looking for “The One” that evokes the idea of her extremely dubious reputation.
The "talented" slacker is trying by all sorts of methods (it is worth admitting rather strange) to attract the attention of a charming libertine, for whom, in general, it does not matter who will be her boyfriend this evening. However, for an unknown reason, she carefully ignores the aforementioned “highly moral” intellectual at the most climax in terms of their physical conjugation moments. What does she want? Who does she think she is? Who is she really? An outspoken prostitute? A cheeky lecher? Or a true collector of men's hearts, to be exact. . .
In the course of the plot, you can endlessly think together with the hero-narrator about the role of this cute girl, about all sorts of philosophical elements of human existence, about morality, chastity and infallibility. The quality and number of answers to certain questions posed by the narrative canvas of the film, as is usually the case in cult author’s films, depend only on the viewer’s personal perception of the events of the picture. And that, as always, is good. This, in fact, and plus the classic films are not of this world.
As a result, “Collector” is a wayward, impregnated with soft, exquisite eroticism cinematic work of a unique director Eric Romer, containing in its depth philosophical reflections of everyday and moral and everyday nature, and claiming to finally find clear lines in the search for solutions to a rich number of questions of this outlandish modern life.
Aesthetic philosophical drama about the ephemerality of ontological (on the example of ethical) grounds and the doom of man to freedom. Romantic, deep-thinking, allowing for different interpretations "the study of emptiness". For Adrienne, a self-righteous egotist, leading an idle lifestyle, lazily existing in conditions of complete uncertainty, the easily accessible and freedom-loving, attractive and superficial Heide becomes the embodiment of “personal hell”. A relationship with her (in principle, any relationship with anyone) would limit his freedom, but the very choice “To be or not to be with her?” becomes existential constraint, and spontaneous overcoming it results in deceptively delightful solitude.
Notable is the remark of the episodic heroine at the beginning of the film: Ugliness is an insult to others. We are responsible for our appearance. These words express not only the extreme subjectivity of perception, but also, according to the main idea of the picture, the influence of the Other’s view on self-perception and human behavior.
“You are acting like a child content with your miserable life,” a rich collector scoffs, reproaching the main character, explaining his idleness, for infantilism. It is a natural reaction to pride; a down-to-earth, rigorous, experiential view of the self-justification of an ordinary slacker. Maturity is the ability to make and be responsible for decisions. Constant and purposeful activity, devoid of creativity, alienates a person from himself, while contempt for work, established norms in society - from society. A person can run away from everything but himself and inevitably faces the need to make a choice. The paradox of freedom, from which one can judge its illusoryness and relativity, is that freedom is not only an opportunity, but also an obligation of the adult to be responsible for himself, and not to rely on other people, state institutions, God or Destiny.
The theme of the interchangeability of the subject and the object of amorous seduction was continued by Romer in The Collector, a film in which the influence of de Sade’s writings is especially noticeable. The male characters are not inferior to the main character in terms of depravity, as indicated by their dialogues, none of the characters can see the love that is gradually born between Heide and Adrian in the heap of amorous adventures. The actors, along with the director, who participated in the creation of the script and dialogue, gave the film the necessary naturalness and improvisation. Creating “Collector” in 1966, Romer does everything possible to give a truthful and objective panorama of the mores of modern youth, without whitewashing it or vilifying it.
The characters of the film as desad libertines do everything possible to prove to each other their emotional invulnerability, the rationality of thoughts, the desire to analyze everything makes them something inanimate in their cynicism and saturation. These are the kind of “natural” people about whom Rousseau wrote (it is not for nothing that Adrian reads his book), but devoid of ideological flair, shown without embellishment. Romer does everything possible to make his characters look as disgusting as possible: they use each other for selfish purposes, trample on the laws of friendship in the name of sensual experiment, are not able to separate love from debauchery.
And no matter how bitchy and sexually indiscriminate Heidi was, she causes the viewer more sympathy than the men around her who use women to satisfy their ambitions, proving their vitality to each other. “Collector” is difficult to watch because of the stench of depraved actions and words, but this film pursues a completely moral goal, as well as the entire cycle of “Six Moral Stories”, – to show the impossibility of hardened libertines to see love where it is obvious to any pure heart. Heidi and Adrian love each other, but they are unable to understand this because of the hypertrophy of their mind, infected with cynicism and fornication.
“Collector” is a sad, even somewhat heavy in terms of emotionality film, there is no gap in it, here everyone is antiheroes, fixated on themselves and their sensuality. They think that they are interested in the world, giving themselves to new and new impressions, but in fact are absorbed only by themselves. They love their sins more than the people around them. And the way the film ends hints at an important Romerian maxim characteristic of most of his paintings - love and in general everything important in our lives is born in us besides our participation, and it is important to notice this in time to exchange it for temporary sinful pleasure. However, this maxim will be revealed more openly in the subsequent films of the series “My Night at Maud”, “Clare’s Knee” and “Love in the Afternoon”.
Eric Romer, who stepped into cinema relatively late, more convincingly than many others managed to prove the incomprehensibility of human nature, and in this he was much helped by words. The director often used them not for information, but as a revelation of the world and character of a particular character, regardless of gender, age and other factors. While Tarkovsky’s films were dominated by speech minimalism, Romer revealed his era through “people who move and talk.” “Collector” in this sense became the first vivid example, and Romer himself assigned her the fourth serial number in the six so-called “Educational Stories”.
Already in the first scene, the photographic portrait of the half-naked heroine on the shore anticipates the mysterious unknownness of the Romerian narrative with a hint of the resurrection of Hitchcock’s traditions of exploring voyeurism, hypocrisy and other personal factors refracted in the specific environment of the sexual desire of men and women. The intrigue will add that the script of the film was collective, and the monologue of the main character Adrien himself wrote actor Patrick Bochaux. From the very beginning of his career, Romer took a certain creative risk, which he demanded from others.
So, a group of people representing the younger generation of French society of the late 60s finds themselves in a country house in the south of France. Among them is Adrien, a middle-class man who is familiar with the art of flirting and the techniques of seducing the opposite sex, but here he deliberately limits himself physically and keeps distance, bringing it to personal subjective needs, such as the desire for doing nothing and loneliness. Adrien is good and full of irresistible charm in his eyes, giving him some reason to behave with people according to his rules. Suddenly, he turns into a mediator in the relationship between two vacationers in the person of artist Daniel and girl Heidi. Adrien observes with interest their reciprocity, at times similar to the game, and comes up with his own strategy of behavior with Heidi.
Symbolic love drama fades into the background, when the director reminds of the flight of each of the characters from one form of life to another, also routine, but more perfect in terms of revealing something important. The superficial playfulness and falsity in the Adrien-Heidi-Daniel triangle is a kind of self-deception for the audience and the trinity itself. A long pastime on the Mediterranean coast intoxicates not only the heroes, but also the audience interested in the maximum development of this story. Where time seems to have stopped, and one does not want to indulge even in dreams, only to be oneself and dissolve in the harmony of nature, people remain people, make up a cunning equation with three names unknown to each other. Each seeks to remove the imaginary mask from the other, to expose or crush with heavy formulation. Their actions are actually clear and thoughtful, they move like electrons in their orbitals, alternately occupying vacant spaces in the common atomic space of the house, whether it is a balcony, a chair or a place near the phone that can solve all issues and take someone out of the game. Of course, the equation remains unsolved.
Society itself corrupts its naturalness, which is so badly needed, Romer repeats to us after Rousseau. This happens all the time, as in the case of Adrien, who continued to think that he was living in a natural spontaneous idyll until he realized that the path was “barbaric” with which his revolutionary friend Daniel was flaunting. Following this, the thought of exquisite freedom acquired ephemeral properties - Adrien always needed the game and the presence of worthy rivals, not why he was in this place?
“Collector” is worth seeing for everyone. It is truly a fascinating and sensual image of the distant French era, fraught with revolutionary aspirations, depicted through the prism of its main driving force - the intellectual youth with its contempt for insincerity and hypocrisy. You will be surprised by the radical view of representatives of that generation on the problem of relations between the two sexes and a number of other issues. Which, without Romer, would surely remain nothing but the idle chatter of a bored bourgeoisie.
When you have everything, you don’t want any of it. This is a film about idle slackers, about people for whom love and sex have long lost any sacred meaning. Therefore, they struggle to create obstacles for themselves, enjoying the fact that they exist in their lives.
Young and natural, like Mother Nature, like a violet on a windowsill, Heidi leads an idle existence, allowing men to enjoy possessing her body. However, it is incredibly natural, which does not allow us to condemn this way of life. And it remains only to admire her, as she and the men around her do.
Adrian is a type of narcissistic pamper of fate who also enjoys himself. His naturalness is more masculine than that of Heidi (which is quite understandable) and than that of Daniel, who constantly appears before us in some peñoires, lace and with an expression of deadly boredom on his face, which Adrian somehow interprets as enviable calm and serenity.
The film is not about a love triangle. I would even say that there is no love in him. I mean love for other people. But we show love for themselves, for Chinese vases, for entertainment.
Man seeks pleasure. And the more forbidden and inaccessible they are, the greater the degree of emotional discharge they bring. Adrian and Heidi do not have an intimate relationship for this reason. They are more interested in playing with each other, content with innocent kisses and touching toes, for example. Despite the minimum of intimate scenes, the film is saturated with eroticism and sexual tension. Graceful as a cat, Heidi, constantly pulling off the occasion and without clothes Adrian. The tension between them permeates the atmosphere of the seaside resort, making an interesting and exciting film with a minimum of events. The actions of the heroes are compensated by words. The inner life of the narrator appears before us in the fullness of experiences and transformations of his emotions, judgments and sensations.
Heidi collects men. Adrian -- vases, art. To yield to each other, to surrender to the mercy of the enemy means to lose your status, to go into the category of things. It's unacceptable for both of us. That’s why their relationship ends in nothing. Fanatic collectors are unable to give up their positions in craftsmanship.
The movie could be a book. But the book is rather boring... For it is the film that allows you to enjoy the visual range in the full aesthetics of nature, interior, architecture and, of course, the physical attractiveness of the characters, which is especially fascinating, perfectly fits into the overall picture.
I don’t know what this story should teach. But it's as graceful as that proverbial Chinese vase. It is in this uselessness that the special beauty of the picture lies. It brings pleasure without loading or teaching. It’s like the director says to us, “Don’t draw any conclusions if you don’t want to, you can’t, or you’re just lazy.” The film will appeal to fans of the “new wave”, French cinema and all those people who love cinema, where they talk more about eternity than do anything to leave their mark on it.
8 out of 10