7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Although he plans to marry a diplomat's daughter by summer's end, Jerôme spends his July at a lakeside boardinghouse, nursing crushes on the sixteen-year-old Laura and, more tantalizingly, her long-legged, blonde, older half sister, Claire. Baring her knee on a ladder under a blooming cherry tree, Claire unwittingly incites a moral crisis for Jerôme.
Starring: Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Fabrice Luchini, Laurence de MonaghanForeign | 100% |
Drama | 80% |
Romance | 30% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales from Criterion.
One of the rather interesting if simultaneously peculiar trivia points about world cinema is how fecund the French movie critic community has been in
producing titans of film making. The iconic French publication Cahiers du Cinéma was a virtual hotbed of activity in this regard,
and if names like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut may be at the apex of any list culled from those who began as writers for the magazine and
who went on to storied careers in film, there are any number of others, including Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and the man responsible for the six
films (some shorts) in this collection, Éric Rohmer. Rohmer's fame may have at least temporarily eclipsed the likes of Godard and Truffaut, for a
little while anyway, when the trifecta of My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, and Love in the Afternoon became
international sensations as the sixties gave way to the seventies. An obituary for Rohmer in a major newspaper mentioned his "durability" and
suggested that even if he didn't have the immediate name recognition of some of his peers, his work had outlasted any flash in the pan sensibility that
may have attended releases of films by other former critics. Really fascinatingly in the "trivial pursuit" category is the fact that all six of the
"tales" aggregated as exemplars of "morality" by Rohmer are based, at least tangentially, on F.W. Murnau's legendary Sunrise.
Claire's Knee is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Criterion's insert booklet states that "the restoration of all six films was undertaken by Les Films du Losange, with the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)", and further specifies that this particular film was transferred in 2K from the original camera negative. If you want to spend a couple of hours just lolling about the amazing French countryside, there's no better double feature than watching this film and La Collectionneuse. As mentioned above, this film may be even more scenic than its predecessor, and the gorgeous color cinematography is very well represented here. It's interesting to find some online commentary from Rohmer stating how important greens were to his vision, because as you can perhaps see from some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, outdoor material in particular seems to be deliberately timed slightly toward greens or yellow-greens. That said, things like flesh tones remain natural looking. Detail levels are typically excellent throughout. Grain resolves naturally.
Claire's Knee features a nicely articulated LPCM Mono track in the original French, though it may be the subtle ambient environmental effects suffusing the outdoor scenes that are the most evocative listening experience, at least in those outside moments. This is another dialogue heavy film, and all spoken material is delivered without any issues. Optional English subtitles are available.
Criterion has packaged Claire's Knee and Love in the Afternoon together on one disc with the following supplements, some of
which, while "officially" listed under one particular film, may be more general in nature.
Claire's Knee
If some of the relatively early interchanges between Jérôme and Laura may have some wincing and silently saying, "Please don't go there," the good news is Rohmer in fact doesn't "really" go there, and he even remains kind of charmingly chaste with Jérôme's interactions with Claire. Technical merits are solid, and Claire's Knee comes Highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
The Collector
1967
La carrière de Suzanne
1963
La boulangère de Monceau
1963
L'amour l'après-midi / Chloe in the Afternoon
1972
Ma nuit chez Maud
1969
Pauline à la plage
1983
Summer / Le rayon vert
1986
Les nuits de la pleine lune
1984
La femme de l'aviateur
1981
1987
Conte d'automne / Autumn Tale
1998
1987
Conte d'hiver
1992
Conte d'été / A Summer's Tale
1996
Die Marquise von O
1976
Conte de printemps
1990
Un beau soleil intérieur
2017
L'avenir
2016
Et Dieu... créa la femme
1956
2003