THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON
THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON
Sometime in January 2011, DVD, Myrlin & Jeremy's place, from library (?)
I don't know where Myr got this - from the library, I'm thinking, but possibly from Movie Madness - but she was interested in taking in this flick as it's based on a 16th century novel by Honorée D'Urfe, and was an inspiration for the subject of her current work-in-progress. I went into it thinking "Yeah, sure, pastoral romance, blah de blah", but was instead served with a delicate, lusty, absolutely gorgeous slice of impossible beauty. The last work of famed (and to me, thus-far unseen) director Eric Rohmer, the whole thing was shot on location in France in some of the last pristine woodland areas available. It's so luscious I immediately wanted to drop everything and travel there.
Anyway, the story is your standard romantic entanglement: boy and girl fall in love, girl doesn't trust boy, boy tries to prove his fidelity, hijinks ensue. Whatever. That is so not the point. The point is the unspoiled location, the staggeringly hot actors, the females in plain drapery and the occasional bare breast, and the complete unreality of it. I was shocked to learn that this film was done in 2007; it seems like some kind of lost treasure from the late 1960s, possibly starring Alain Delon or Monica Vitti. It's like a requiem for the kind of filmmaking that just isn't really done anymore, if it ever was. Lyrical and dreamy; I recommend it, but there's no need to watch it too closely. A good dinner-party film.
Sometime in January 2011, DVD, Myrlin & Jeremy's place, from library (?)
I don't know where Myr got this - from the library, I'm thinking, but possibly from Movie Madness - but she was interested in taking in this flick as it's based on a 16th century novel by Honorée D'Urfe, and was an inspiration for the subject of her current work-in-progress. I went into it thinking "Yeah, sure, pastoral romance, blah de blah", but was instead served with a delicate, lusty, absolutely gorgeous slice of impossible beauty. The last work of famed (and to me, thus-far unseen) director Eric Rohmer, the whole thing was shot on location in France in some of the last pristine woodland areas available. It's so luscious I immediately wanted to drop everything and travel there.
Anyway, the story is your standard romantic entanglement: boy and girl fall in love, girl doesn't trust boy, boy tries to prove his fidelity, hijinks ensue. Whatever. That is so not the point. The point is the unspoiled location, the staggeringly hot actors, the females in plain drapery and the occasional bare breast, and the complete unreality of it. I was shocked to learn that this film was done in 2007; it seems like some kind of lost treasure from the late 1960s, possibly starring Alain Delon or Monica Vitti. It's like a requiem for the kind of filmmaking that just isn't really done anymore, if it ever was. Lyrical and dreamy; I recommend it, but there's no need to watch it too closely. A good dinner-party film.