Les amours d'Astrée et Céladon

Answering an interview about his latest film, Les Amours d'Astrée et Céladon, eighty-seven year-old French director Eric Rohmer compared it to Fritz Lang's The Hindu Tomb. At first, the comparison may seem odd, and yet Rohmer's movie is likely to trigger the same kind of reaction from the audience, and especially from cinema-lovers, as Lang's extravagganza did fifty years ago: surprise, laughter, and maybe contempt from those who will consider the movie as a minor work from an ageing director. The story seems to be coming from the worst US soap opera, a sentimental tale about the love quarrels of young people, but after all so may seem some of Shakespeare's most renowned. However, Astree and Celadon remains for me one of the most fascinating movies of this year, which has been altogether quite mediocre and tasteless, for the main argument of the movie is a passionate advocacy of love and life. And in these times of cynicism and darkness, this hedonistic message handed in by an eighty-year-old director is not only essential, but it is real delight to watch. Throughout the movie, I was smiling from ear to ear...