Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle

A Rohmer film made of four short episodes. Reinette lives in the country and paints. Mirabelle is a student in Paris. They meet when a bicycle breaks down, and Reinette wants to show her something: between night and day there is a brief moment when the birds fall silent and nothing can be heard. They call it the blue hour. Then Reinette moves to Paris and the two share a flat. The remaining episodes take place in the city: a dispute over a bill in a cafe, a theft, an attempt to sell a painting. What the film is interested in is moral conduct. The two behave differently in every situation. Reinette insists on honesty and is constantly left in difficulty because of it; Mirabelle is more flexible and finds that reasonable. The narrative does not say which is right. It was shot on a very small budget with a tiny crew. Rohmer chose his performers first and then wrote the text from what they told him. Joëlle Miquel plays Reinette and Jessica Forde plays Mirabelle. Éric Rohmer directed. A light and intelligent film for anyone who likes French cinema and narratives built on conversation. For a viewer expecting incident, nothing large happens in any of the four episodes.