Claire's Knee

The fifth of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, and the scene it is named for is among the most cited images in French cinema: Claire on a ladder under a cherry tree in blossom, her knee exposed. Jérôme, a diplomat, spends July in his home town on Lake Annecy before leaving for Sweden to marry. There he runs into an old friend, the writer Aurora. Sixteen-year-old Laura becomes visibly infatuated with him; Jérôme fixes instead on her long-legged, blonde older half-sister Claire. What he wants is not Claire but simply to touch her knee. All the film's tension comes from taking that absurd, tiny desire seriously. Jérôme narrates every move to Aurora, who listens to it as material for the novel she is writing; the man delivers a running commentary on his own moral collapse. Béatrice Romand plays Laura in the first of six Rohmer films she would make. Laurence de Monaghan plays Claire, and Rohmer's close friend Aurora Cornu plays Aurora. Who it is for: viewers who like Rohmer's cinema of conversation and are curious about how desire justifies itself. Who it is not for: anyone unable to set aside Jérôme's age against Laura's sixteen. The film notices that discomfort but never judges the character outright.