My Night at Maud's

It was with My Night at Maud's that Eric Rohmer achieved his richly deserved commercial breakthrough. Rohmer is as close as film comes to an impressionist, someone who grasps everyday situations and moods and transforms them into magical, shimmering moments. Jean-Louis is a 34-year-old devout Catholic who has become increasingly interested in chance and probability. Perhaps it is because he – though he will not admit it – wants to challenge his own belief that everything in life is predestined. He has recently arrived in a mid-sized French town for a new job, and meets an old friend who invites him to Christmas dinner at the home of his doctor friend Maud; a lapsed Catholic living with her little daughter. The Christmas dinner winds down. Maud insists that Jean-Louis stay overnight, as she is afraid he will suffer the same fate as her former lover, who died on his way home on the icy roads. Jean-Louis eventually lets himself be persuaded to stay the night. There are considerable doses of unspoken romance in the air, but nothing happens. Maud wrongly accuses Jean-Louis of being in love with another woman, a blonde. The next morning he sees a beautiful young blonde on the street, whom he had previously noticed at a church service. The otherwise correct and reserved Jean-Louis drives after her and impulsively runs out of his car to introduce himself. It turns out she knows Jean-Louis' old friend, and from Maud he discovers that she was the mistress of Maud's former husband. As in a Greek drama, Rohmer spins capricious threads between those involved. Are they merely pieces in an already predetermined game, or do they have the possibility of deciding their own fate? Despite the serious tone, humor is always present. Rohmer subtly gives us a humorous sense of how existence plays hide-and-seek with us – so we just have to carry on as best we can, trying to make sense of our oh-so-unpredictable lives.