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Claire's Knee Reviews
This movie looked awkward so many times (mostly the way Aurora is played seams like the actress just can't express any feelings) and it didn't really relate to me. 2 older people messing around with young girls one for a novel & the other for no reason at all. I saw some of the 'deep currents' that the movie is supposed to be renowned for but they weren't that deep or meaningful
It's a masterpiece. Nearly everything in this film is perfect, from the direction by Mr. Rohmer to the beautiful locations, from the intelligent natural cinematography to the convincing actors and the soundtrack which is as natural as it can get, creates a perfect balance of a film. You can watch it over and over again.
It's hard to put into words the intrigue of this film. It's very beautiful, and as is common with Rohmer, full of sexual tension. But that provides a vehicle for him to explore the inner life of the protagonist in a memorable way.
8.5/10, my review: http://wp.me/p1eXom-2x5
A film about a man in his late 30's or so are on vacation. He is engaged but still a man filled with opinions about and experience with women. I get the vibe from Linklater's films as we meet the first lady here. They just chat. They seem to have a solid history. There are few men here, except from the lead, Jerome. He is a nice and smart man, and to help his known ladyfriend writing a story, he fakes a passion about a much younger girl. It's never unpleasant, but still unsettling all the way. It's all in the viewers head in a way. Then he meets Claire. A very young lady, still very beautiful. He kind of wants her, but he just want to know that he really can have her - even if it's wrong for many reasons. He want's to prove something. First and foremost he wants to touch her knee. The dialogues are clever and poetic. It's setting is in nice surroundings, summer in France. Sometimes by a small boat, other times we're in a garden - listening to their chatting. A slow but pleasent film. Great characters and super acting, especially by the lead. Provocative but very subtly so. It's about love, sex and moral - but all key elements stays hidden. It's radio erotica. My first Rohmer film. It's a possibility there may be more. 7.5 out of 10 motorboats making (French) new waves.
Fantastic movie. One of my favorite Rohmer's. A must see.
Perhaps cinema's most articulate representation of a body part fetish. The fifth of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales is a clever film, with an even more clever romantic experiment carrying it's narrative.
Intriguing and it had a good screenplay. Also, the location was beautiful and the actors were good for their roles, but the coaching of them was amateurish given that they always seemed to be aware of the camera. Sometimes they would look straight at it mistakenly, or was it on purpose!?!
This reminded me of one of those instances in my life when even though I was in a monogamous relationship, that being human, I looked at another woman and wanted to be unfaithful. Though this isn't my favourite of Rohmer's works from an outstanding part of his career (that would have to be 'My Night at Maud's'), this would have to be right up there, and is recommended to anyone who appreciates excellence in foreign cinema, particularly from masters of the French New Wave. As well, that famous moment of the older man looking up the ladder and seeing the beautiful young woman's bare knee and feeling that longing has to be THE finest depiction of that feeling in all of movies. Glorious, heartfelt, extremely intrinsically rewarding work.
Perhaps only the French would concoct a movie about a summer place (around a lake) where a 35-to-40 year old man about to get married discusses the possibilities and implications of an affair with a teenage girl. Perhaps only Eric Rohmer would make such a movie. The film itself is chaste but evocative. Jerome stumbles into the plot because he runs into his friend, Aurora, a writer, who is lodging with a single mother of two teen girls (from different fathers, although it matters not). She wants to experiment with an idea for a novel (about an older man and a teenage girl). The acting of the principals captures the right blend of awkwardness, especially for Jerome who is very out-of-place at times in the young person's world. Of course, in a somewhat Bunuellian (or Nabokovian) fashion, the film becomes focused on Claire's knee as an object of desire. What would be the various meanings or effects of a gentle touch of that knee? A film that unwinds through talk that seems natural enough, though literary in scope, and which pulls you in through the ordinary suspense created when we wonder what people will do when they have moral choices to make.
My first French film. Transformed my life and I have never looked back. If I recall correctly, I saw this at the suggestion of John Paul Thorpe.
<b>Eric Rohmer's 5th Moral Tale</b> --><i>Possible moral topic(s) treated:</i> Emotional manipulation for the fulfillment of perverted fantasies. BAM!! Rohmer accomplishes the ridiculously difficult task of putting into coherent (sometimes sophisticated, but never sophistic) words the complex mentality that drives men's impulses into scandalously immoral actions. Maybe our fathers saw scandal in the age difference issue; today, it doesn't bother us that much anymore because society is, in some respects, more degraded than before. Hence, <i>Le Genou de Claire</i> arises new questionings today. I use the word "scandalous" because Jerome's ambitions are truly perverted. The direction is impeccable and accurate because only all of us men are capable of understanding the powerlessness caused by a gorgeous female figure in an instant, no emotional attachments involved. In that way, everything suddenly becomes elements that conspire against you: the landscape in which you are in, the climate, the people around you when all you want is to find the golden opportunity of being alone with the source of your obsession, the lovers like if they were your personal competitors... everything becomes a conspiracy against you. A vacation can turn into a nightmare, but us men can find the fun in such disturbing experience. A substantial amount of scenes in <i>Le Genou de Claire</i> <b>needed</b> to resemble an "interview style", so that both genders have the opportunity to make efforts to express the reasons behind their actions. Truth is, we do not know the reasons behind our actions. Jerome's marriage does not matter at the end of the day. What should really capture the audience is how, while trying to explain our actions, we build complex sentences as coherent as possible to justify what we do while pretending to know that we understand the complex psychological processes involved, and that is what Jerome stands for as a character. That is why Laura's presence occupies the first half of the film and her participation in it turns out to be funny and ironic, but paradoxical: she understands better why she does what she does (the "lack of parental figure" observation was spot-on) than Jerome, even better than Aurora, whose experimental reasons remain unexplained and that makes it all the more mysterious... just like human nature is. Watching this film is like watching a mirror for men. The situation, even though improbable, is very realistic towards our unfortunately primitive male nature, and most of us have been in that situation with a close relative. Age does not matter, I reiterate. But it is ashaming to accept that our so-called "freedom" (in the context of "I am a free man/woman", like stated in the film) does not represent more than slavery to our passions. Damn it, I've been there, it is extremely difficult to handle, but why is it that we want to be the #1 guy in the lives of every single woman we meet? Rohmer, audaciously, circles around this particular question with challenging delicacy and, let's say, "diplomacy", making you realize that moral is relative, and the roots of your decisions and impulses are much more disturbing than what you realize. 99/100
Top-tier Rohmer. Although, pretty much all Rohmer is top-tier. Ebert put it best: "Claire's Knee is a movie for people who still read good novels, care about good films, and think occasionally."
Aurora should have been a better actress. Masterpiece.
Jean-Claude Brialy is endlessly fascinating as Jerome in this intriguing tale of sexual obsession filmed against the backdrop of breathtaking scenery.
This movie is mostly about the dialoge and how it really engages us. It's also obviously somewhat creepy, but not really what you would think. The characters are also very smart here and flawless in their roles. It makes sense that Eric Rohmer has a collection of his films in the Criterion collection, this being one of the "Six Moral Tales". It's amazing how this simple story can bring so much life from within and also a human aspect unlike most in cinema today.