| “THE chattering classes” is a term that could well have been invented to describe the characters in Eric Rohmer’s films. His latest work, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (Les Amours d’Astrée et de Céladon) (Cert. 12A), reaches us in his 89th year.
When all is said and done, much more is said than done in movies such as My Night with Maud (one of Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales) or The Green Ray (from his Comedies and Proverbs series). If you want action, then go to see Iron Man. But if you prefer sublime understandings of the human condition, then look no further than what is believed to be Rohmer’s swansong.
This former professor who turned film critic before becoming a pioneer of the French New Wave has resolutely continued to explore his abiding interest in the relationship between love and faith. Devoutly Roman Catholic, this new film sums up many of his preoccupations: destiny and free will, the intervention of the divine, dealing with temptation. In short, it’s another of his lessons in contemplation.
Honoré d’Urfé’s 1610 novel is set in fifth-century Gaul, and runs to 5000 pages. Rohmer confines himself to 107 minutes. A keen environmentalist, he has relocated this story of shepherds, nymphs, and druids in Auvergne. “Sadly”, say the opening captions, “we have had to move their story from the Forez plain, now disfigured by urban blight and conifer plantations, to another part of France whose scenery has retained its wild poetry and bucolic charm.”
Rohmer has also transposed the story to the time when d’Urfé wrote it. The themes, however, transcend both period and place. Astrea (Stéphanie Crayencour), a shepherdess, has commanded her lover Celadon (Andy Gillet), who has become a shepherd, to pretend to woo another woman as a ploy (don’t ask why) to deal with the opposition of his parents. It backfires, and Astrea banishes him.
Celadon attempts to drown himself. Rescued by nymphs, he recovers while Astrea and friends continue to believe Celadon is dead. Leonide (Cécile Cassel), one of the nymphs, enlists Adamas (Serge Renko), a Druid, to persuade Celadon to reconcile with Astrea, but the young man refuses on the grounds that love involves obedience to his beloved’s order not to see him again. Celadon eventually agrees to pass himself off with his estranged lover as Adamas’s daughter.
You would be forgiven at this point for thinking we had strayed into As You Like It or some such Shakespearean plot. In this Arden-like forest, lover and beloved slowly find each other and meld together again. This is where earlier talk comes in; for we have previously witnessed lengthy discourses on how those who truly love merge metaphysically with one another. In response to a tutorial from Adamas on monotheism, Celadon creates a shrine of love in honour of the third Person of the Holy Trinity, which his friends happen upon. Most of them recognise that they are standing on holy ground. It becomes the impetus for Celadon’s resurrection, the film ending with Astrea’s new commandment to him: “Live.”
This is but the latest example of Rohmer’s penchant for actualising in his characters the theological disquisitions that have taken place earlier in his narrative. It has, over the years, led some critics to perceive him as epitomising “poor, talkative Christianity”. In fact, this veteran director continues here to be as brilliant a master of silent and humane observation as ever. We are invited to find the presence of God in what is not said, in the space between the words.
Now on release at selected cinemas nationwide.
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