Love in the Afternoon (1972)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Love in the Afternoon (1972) – E. Rohmer

The last of Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales finds Frederic, a young businessman, reflecting on his life after three years of marriage. His internal thoughts are narrated in voiceover.  He thinks about women and his attraction to them in the context of his fidelity to his wife which he is proud to honour. They have a very young daughter as well.  Frederic’s life has become bourgeois but he sees himself as a sort of urban cat, prowling around in the afternoons.  When an old acquaintance, Chloe, returns after a six-year absence overseas, she provokes him and challenges his views about relationships.  She is rootless, flitting from job to job and from man to man, clearly independent and willful and sexy for that reason.  Frederic finds himself drawn to her and they set up rendezvouses on certain afternoons, physically chaste though emotionally all over the place.  Rohmer is good at getting into his male characters’ psyches, undermining their confidence and throwing moral dilemmas at them.  We don’t really get inside the women but they are treated as mysterious and special.  Rohmer’s films are naturally all talk but they can be exhilarating and refreshing.  We don’t know where Frederic is heading but the conclusion of the film feels to be his choice, made freely and autonomously and Rohmer respects it (as he respects his audience and his vision).