Spring tale

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Spring tale
Original title Conte de printemps
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1990
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Eric Rohmer
script Eric Rohmer
production Margaret Ménégoz
music Ludwig van Beethoven , Robert Schumann
camera Luc Pagès
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Winter's Tale

Spring Tale ( Conte de printemps ) is a French comedy film from 1990 and forms the first part of the cycle Tales of the Four Seasons ( Contes des quatre saisons ). The other films in the cycle are summer (1996) , autumn story (1998) and winter fairy tale (1992). The director and screenwriter is Éric Rohmer , one of the leading exponents of the Nouvelle Vague (French: New Wave), whose terse style is paired with a great love for meticulous sharpness of detail.

action

Jeanne is a young philosophy teacher who is doing her preparatory service at a high school in the Paris area . She lives with her friend Mathieu, a mathematician with a tendency to disorder. But Jeanne, who doesn't really like disorder, cannot stand it in his apartment when he is away and she is alone. Her own apartment is currently being confiscated by her cousin Gaëlle, to whom she has left it and whom she does not want to put in front of the door. Without knowing where to spend the night, Jeanne goes to a party for the inauguration of the apartment in the evening and has a conversation with the pretty girl Natacha. Both are sympathetic from the start and quickly become friends. Natacha, who is studying piano at the conservatory, invites Jeanne to her home and offers to let her have her father's bedroom, who almost never stays at home. Her father Igor is a civil servant in the Ministry of Culture and lives with his girlfriend Ève, who is hardly older than his daughter. Jeanne accepts the invitation and they both leave the party early.

The next morning Igor comes home to take some clothes with him when Jeanne is taking a shower. Both are surprised and embarrassed; everyone apologizes to the other for their behavior. In the afternoon when Natacha returns from class, she is dying to hear Jeanne's first meeting with Igor - she can't stand Ève and wants nothing more than another friend for her father. From now on, Natacha tries with moderate skill to bring Jeanne and Igor together whenever she can arrange it. In the evening, all three women, Jeanne, Natacha and Ève, meet for the first time at dinner. A heated discussion relaxes in which the individual characters come out with their mutual preferences for one another and especially their dislikes for one another. The next day Jeanne and Natacha are alone again and drive together to Fontainebleau to Natacha's father's country house. It is the first visit there after winter, and the garden shows itself in white flowers. Natacha tells of her suspicion that Ève and Igor are not entirely innocent in the disappearance of a necklace from their mother, which she, Natacha, was supposed to receive for her birthday. Again and again she brings up this topic and blames both of them.

A week later they go out to the country house again, but this time Igor is there too, unfortunately, as Natacha finds out, together with Ève. During the preparations for lunch there is a scandal between Ève and Natacha, Jeanne tries in vain to mediate, and Igor takes Ève to the train station by necessity. After Natacha has successfully banished the hated Ève, Natacha's boyfriend suddenly appears, barely younger than her father, and they both also leave, leaving Jeanne and Igor alone. In the evening, with a recording of Natacha Schumann playing in the background, Igor and Jeanne tentatively approach each other. She grants him three wishes: to sit next to her, hold her hand, kiss her; but that's enough for her and she ends the game. When Jeanne, having returned to Paris, takes her things out of Igor's bedroom closet, the long-sought necklace falls by chance at her feet, which finally turns out Igor and especially Eve's innocence. After saying goodbye to Natacha, who proudly wears her necklace, she returns to Mathieu's apartment, where she awaits her boyfriend's return.

criticism

  • Lexicon of international film : The first part of Eric Rohmer's film cycle “Four Seasons” describes in an elegant staging and with a light hand the often difficult coexistence of people. The discrepancy between their thoughts and actions keeps the viewer at an ironic distance, which enables them to follow the action with both amusement and fascination.
  • Catholic film work: The 70-year-old moralist in French cinema constantly rearranges the person constellations like a bouquet of flowers and thus explores the possibility or impossibility of relationships. The focus of the spring fairy tale, which is as elegant as it is weightlessly staged, is the polished dialogue as the most civilized form of expression of human togetherness, as it enables conclusions to be drawn about the nature and soul of the protagonists. [...] Here, forbearance and ironic distance determine the staging, which one follows with amusement, even when reference is made to weaknesses in one's own character.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the spring story . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2010 (PDF; test number: 63 881 V).
  2. ↑ Spring tale . In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 13, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Spring tale . Cinema tip from the Catholic film review May 24, 1990.