My girlfriend's boyfriend

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title My girlfriend's boyfriend
Original title L'ami de mon amie
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1987
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK from 12
Rod
Director Eric Rohmer
script Eric Rohmer
production Margaret Ménégoz
music Jean-Louis Valero
camera Bernard Lutic
cut María Luisa García
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The green glow

My friend's boyfriend is the sixth and final film in the series Comedies and Proverbs by Éric Rohmer, made in 1987 . The film revolves around five people who at the end come together to form pairs in different constellations. The motto of the film is the phrase “The friends of my friends are my friends” (“Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis”).

action

The young, shy administrative clerk Blanche lives in Cergy-Pontoise , a modern satellite town of Paris designed on the drawing board . She meets the fun-loving student Léa and her quiet friend Fabien, a couple who have hardly any interests in common, which leads Léa to the carefree determination that both would get along better without each other.

The quartet completes Alexandre, a charismatic beau who is loosely in a relationship with the art student Adrienne and who casts Blanche under his spell at first glance. But when Léa introduces the two to each other, Blanche is too self-conscious to draw Alexandre's attention, and Alexandre only has eyes for her friend.

While Léa travels for the weekend to test her feelings for Fabien, Blanche tries to get closer to Alexandre. But she only meets Léa's lonely friend Fabien until the two arrange to go windsurfing. Blanche and Fabien get closer, and with reluctant feelings they kiss in a forest clearing and finally they spend the night together.

Both agree that the night must not be continued, as the "friends of their friends" are taboo for one another. After Léa's return, her relationship with Fabien seems to flourish again. Once again she resumes her friendship service to interest Alexandre in Blanche. But Alexandre is not interested in Blanche, but in Léa, with whom his charm is gradually becoming entangled. For her part, Blanche has lost interest in Alexandre and is drawn to Fabien, whom she meets for the first time since their night together. The couples have broken up and come together in different ways.

The effort to avoid the old partners leads the quartet purposefully to the same remote lake restaurant. Once again there is a misunderstanding between Blanche and Léa, which puts their fresh feelings for each new friend to the test. But in the end, two newly formed couples face each other. Only the color of their clothing reveals the original formations.

Backdrop

The film is set mainly in the Parisian satellite town of Cergy-Pontoise with its Ax Majeur, which was redesigned in the 1980s by Ricardo Bofill and Dani Karavan in the look of the Renaissance . Rohmer had already got to know the modern suburb in its early stages of development in 1975 when he was producing L'enfance d'une ville, the first part of a four-part documentary series entitled Ville nouvelle, for French television.

  • Ax Majeur with a view of the Oise and Les Étangs

  • Place des Colonnes Hubert Renaud - Blanche's place of residence

  • Cergy-Pontoise municipal administration - Blanche's workplace

  • Électricité de France skyscraper - Alexandre's workplace

  • Les Trois Fontaines department store - Blanche and Fabien meet

  • Cergy Saint-Christophe train station

Remarks

  • The film ironically illustrates the phrase "my friends' friends are my friends."
  • It is laid out like a geometric solitaire Les Quatre Coins (Four Corners), in which five people fight for four places before the game ends in a different constellation.
  • As the dominant colors, blue and green tones run through the entire film. They also mark the two original pairs in the final tableau.
  • The director demanded 25 minutes of music from the composer Jean-Louis Valero , which should not be heard in the film.
  • An original scene from a match by Ivan Lendl , who won the tennis tournament in 1986 and 1987, is mounted in the visit to the French Open .
  • Sophie Renoir , the actress from Léa, was already seen in Rohmer's film The Beautiful Wedding in 1982 .
  • Anne-Laure Meury was involved in his earlier films Perceval le gallois and The Aviator's Wife or One Can't Think of Nothing .
  • The song by the German indie band Tocotronic, My Girlfriend and Her Boyfriend, refers to the film and ties in with it in terms of content.
  • The other films in the cycle Comedies and Proverbs are: The Aviator's Wife or You Can't Think of Nothing (1981), The Beautiful Wedding (1982), Pauline on the Beach (1982), Full Moon Nights (1984) and The Green Shine (1986) .

criticism

“A sensitive, narrative-analytical, light and natural-looking description of the character and situation of young people. Particularly brilliant: dialogue and actor guidance. "

- Lexicon of international film

“'L'Ami de Mon Amie' appears as pure and functional as the satellite city, but it is full of unexpected pleasures. [...] After the press screening , a friend complained that the film must have been 16 hours long. […] In fact, it's 102 minutes, and they're all wonderful. "

- Vincent Canby

Awards

My friend's boyfriend was nominated in 1988 for the César in the categories of Best Director , Best Screenplay and Best Young Actress (Sophie Renoir), but did not receive an award.

literature

  • Éric Rohmer: Comédies et Proverbes. Volume II, Les nuits de pleine lune, Le Rayon vert, L'Ami de mon amie. Cahiers du cinéma, Paris 1999 ( Petite Bibliothèque, vol. 38), ISBN 2-86642-241-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Claude-Marie Trémois: Éric Rohmer. Éloge d'un cinéma impur (French).
  2. ↑ Jean-Louis Valéro's website (French and English).
  3. ↑ My friend's boyfriend. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 1, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Vincent Canby : Rohmer's Own View of the Mind. In: New York Times, July 15, 1988 (English).