‘Conte d’été‘ (the English title is ‘A Summer Tale‘) made by Éric Rohmer in 1996 belongs to a genre of movies that I rarely watch – a romantic story with young people just out of adolescence. And yet, this seemingly simple story, which takes place somewhere on the coast of Brittany, in a not too hot summer, in a holiday atmosphere but without tourist obsessions, captivated me. In Rohmer‘s creation, the film is part of a ‘quartet of the seasons’ and I think I will look for the other films of the cluster to complete my image of this French director that I know very little about.
The main hero of the film is Gaspard, a student just out of adolescence, with musical ambitions and talent as a composer. Young, handsome, shy but talkative when he meets girls willing to listen to him, he lives one of these dilemmas that are existential for those who live them (especially at his age) and enviable for the rest of the world: the choice between three girls – his ambiguous and somewhat absent lover Lena, the sparkling but demanding Solene, and the intelligent devoted friend Margot. For most of the film, we watch the undecided boy’s worries and hesitations and his walks on the shores of the ocean with the one of the three girls (usually in swimsuits) sprinkled with endless dialogues that one can only entertain around the age of 20. All these seem like a sure recipe for boredom and cinematic failure, but the result is exactly the opposite.
What is the secret of the charm of this film? There is a documentary dedicated to its realization that I have not seen yet, I will look for it. I can only imagine director Éric Rohmer, then in his mid-seventies, working on this romantic story about youngsters in their early twenties. The actors are the age of the heroes, none of them was by then and did not become a great star of French cinema, but that’s even better for the viewers, because their faces are unknown and this adds to the impression of naturalness, freshness and sincerity that the whole film radiates. At no time did I have any sense of falsehood or unnecessary rhetoric. Cinematography makes perfect use of the natural setting without falling into tourist aesthetics traps. Éric Rohmer proves in this film an excellent understanding of the psychology of young people and a perfect mastery of the art of working with actors. ‘Conte d’été‘ attracted me to its world, it was an unexpectedly good cinematic and emotional experience.