lovers on a weekday afternoon

"Afternoon Love" is the last in Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales". Rohmer uniquely pioneered the practice of film series in the New Wave, each with a focused theme and approach, shot over several years around the same theme. Rohmer has a unique set of film concepts. He believes that it is not necessary to care whether the subject matter attracts the audience. After shooting the same subject six times, the audience may understand it, and if he insists on a "idea", he will have followers. "Six Moral Tales" is his first series. The film was shot from 1963 to 1972. All of them are about courtship. Also mostly sentimental. The so-called "moral story" may not be accurate. In the film, Rohmer focuses more on the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters, rather than whether to act in accordance with certain moral concepts. Rohmer once said frankly: "I don't care what happened, I only care about the psychological state of the parties at the time of the incident." In his films, he rarely improvises, and all his lines are accurately selected to describe love with carefully laid out eloquent dialogues. The behaviors, tastes and choices of the middle-aged people, although there are no ups and downs in the plot, create a unique movie aesthetics like prose and novels. When I see the end of the film, I always feel that the story is not over yet. The film's male protagonist, Frederick, seems like all middle-class people, with a successful career and a happy family. After three years of marriage, he began to have doubts about his married life, believing that the marriage entrapped him and deprived him of a certain freedom. He is always thinking about the beauties he meets in the leisurely and boring afternoons, but that's all. "I said to myself that these passing beauties were just an extension of my wife's beauty. They enriched her beauty and got some of her beauty. She's a testament to beauty and vice versa. When I hug Helene, I hug all women," Fred explained, but it's not hard to hear that it's self-suggestion and comfort. Chloe, an old lover who finally took the initiative and enthusiasm, broke into his office one afternoon. Although he was struggling, he was unable to resist the temptation of being cunning and bold, and gradually Fred began to be eager to try. But when he took off his turtleneck and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he remembered that he had also made fun of the child with the same comical gesture, and fled away. When he returns home full of guilt, he finds that his wife also seems to be different than usual. The outcome of Frederick's final choice seems to be worthy of his identity, but it is not comforting. It seems to be a choice that follows rationality, morality, or some kind of ambiguous insistence, but it highlights the weakness, hypocrisy and inaction in his heart. Perhaps not afraid to speculate with the worst malice, Frederick is just dissatisfied with Chloe's status and behavior, all of which seem to have nothing to do with his middle class. The status of the class is commensurate with his narcissistic life philosophy. The same is true of the male figures in other stories in the same series: full of fantasy but lack of action, the choices in moral dilemmas are always conservative and boring, perhaps the subconscious fear of freedom and laissez-faire, the uncertainty in the face of uncertainty. Attraction always ends up evading under the pretext of self-righteousness. In contrast, the women in the story are always conscious and strategic. In contrast to their intelligent and sensitive behavior, the men's forced submission due to lack of action makes the film's ending even more sentimental. Perhaps Rohmer does not trust the eternal relationship between men and women, so the ending of each film seems to be open, seemingly happy but not back to the original point, and the ambiguous results are even more fascinating.