4 Aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle

1986, Eric Rohmer
A little more of a focus on the sociology than usual, examining the streets as much as the people on them. We are deliberately made to look at each locale slightly askew, from an outsider’s perspective, or due to a slight unravelling of the norms. Rohmer takes great detail on the set design, and we are immediately curious when the little stray drawings, contingencies, appear across the screen.
Rohmer’s cinema is dialogue-heavy, though often the dialogue isn’t what ultimately reveals; it might be the clothing, the order one does something in, the eyes have it, quite literally. As in this, the breaking up of the narrative gives a kind of distance, perhaps a step more than Rohmer’s previously developing wryness, on the action. Another interesting picture.