The great thing about Rhomer is that it uses empty plots, annoyingly long dialogues, misty colors, slow motion, low-cost crews, and anonymous actors to tell the deep struggles of human nature and expose love. The lies in the book, showing the wandering choices made by selfishness, and thinking about the various entanglements of desire, morality, love and friendship. "my night at maud's", one of the six moral stories, is a typical roma production.
During the Christmas holiday, because of the rain and snow, the man stayed at the beautiful divorced woman's house. They kept talking about Pascal, religion and morality, love and loyalty. The man's tone is firm and his face is serious and he states his creed: "Purity of heart is the important thing. If you're really in love with one girl, you don't want to sleep with another", "One shouldn't be obliged to forget. One should love one girl and no other, not even platonically.
Another film, "Summer's Tale", may be the one with the most plot and the most actors (at least four) for Rohmer. One summer, three girls, a boy from Qin Muchu, tossed between the ideal girlfriend, the lively, straightforward and hot Su Lan, and Margo, who had a soft spot for him. Three girls, one is the incarnation of the unreachable ideal love, the other is the body of hot and passionate desire in reality, and the other is the confidante of Lanyan who talks about everything. The boy is actually very innocent. He believes and repeatedly emphasizes that he is waiting for the girlfriend he likes. He tries hard to stick to the love he imagined, but he can't stand his girlfriend's unpredictable temper, and he can't resist the charming girl on the other side. The temptation at your fingertips. The boy did not deliberately deceive, but he wandered involuntarily. His hesitation, his self-reflection, his half-heartedness, his cautiousness, his absent-mindedness, everything is so natural and understandable, why? Because of these kinds of feelings, all of us are familiar with the past in the memory of each of us. So we smiled and looked at the boy, at his hesitant hesitation, at his little cunning, at his cautious temptation, at his subtle escape. At the end of the film, it is no longer important whether he has the girl he loves and whether he understands his heart. The important thing is that we see his growth, his relief, his brisk pace towards the future.
Rhomer is not in the slightest snarky, his perspective is full of tolerance and understanding. The end of his story is neither to punish the wicked nor to make everyone happy. His male protagonists are always lucky and clever to find their own happiness, although they may have lost another kind of happiness vaguely. Rohmer is so tolerant of provocative male protagonists, not because they are handsome guys and so should be sheltered, nor is he trying to attract attention to challenge or question moral standards, and it is not to encourage people to play the game of love. He just reminded us that this is the heartbeat of each of us.
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