bijou-2 One of those French films where people walk through vineyards talking about love. Funny how you only find these relaxed chatty French people in movies yet the real Paris is as high strung and angry as New York. Maybe they act like this when they go to the country on weekends.Don't let this laid back act fool you, though. A stereotypical French professor lusting after his teenager students and lovesick middle aged women without anything to do is what passes for love here. The younger pretty people are so one dimensionally uninteresting they may as well be pets. It would appear that vineyard farming near a nuclear power plant is both glamorous and apparently not very time consuming. This leaves our characters plenty of time to wax melancholy about "l'amour".Among this films many conceits is the lack of a hairbrush or a comb for miles. Shaggy wind blown hair and weeds are the metaphors here. Give me a break!

Harry T. Yung One of the original French New Wave directors, Eric Rohmer completed the last and most cheerful of his "Four Season" series "Autumn Tale" when he was 79 years young (at 84 he made "Triple Agent" and showed no sign of tiring).One most interesting thing about "Autumn Tale" is that two professional critic said what appear to be opposite things about the place of plots in Rohmer's films, but actually meant the same thing. One said, "Plot is typically one of the least important elements of a Rohmer movie", while the other " His films are heavily, craftily plotted, and yet wear their plots so easily that we feel we're watching everyday life as it unfolds." "Autumn Tale" plays almost like a stage play, with two multi-scene acts. The first act sets up the stage and develops the characters. The second act is a wedding party where two matchmaking efforts collide. The object is a widowed vineyard owner who tries to convince herself that she is happily occupied with her work. Scheme number one comes from a good friend (who is happily married and has a daughter who is getting married) who put up a "lonely heart" ad for her, interviews the applicant and tries to bring the two together at the wedding party. Scheme number two comes, brilliantly and unexpectedly, from her son's lovely girlfriend who is very fond of her. The candidate here is the young lady's ex, a professor who can "talk philosophy". This is a ridiculous idea in the son's view, "You're trying to make your ex my stepfather".So much for the plot, which is described above in its bear minimum, without its various hints of subtleties. The beauty of the movie is really in the acting. Never over-directed, it allows the absolutely top-notch cast to take the audience into a happy two-hour party. At the end, you don't feel like having watched a movie with phoney characters, but rather like having spent an evening with some good friends, who are real people. We are charmed and delighted, as well as gently probed into thinking more about relationships between people, particularly how they click. In a way, it's quite similar to "Sideways" but comes even more naturally. Like "Sideways", it has an open ending which is the nearest you can come to a happy ending.

Red-125 Autumn Tale is an interesting, beautiful film. It is far more subtle than an American romance about middle-age love would be. Rohmer's basic premise is that men and women in their 40's or 50's can be interesting, beautfiul, and attractive to other men and women. (Of course, this is obvious, but in Autumn Tale this premise is taken for granted. In a U.S. film the director would have to explain a similar premise.)If I have a criticism of Autumn Tale, it is that all the women--leads, supporting actors, walk-ons, are gloriously beautiful. Surely there are some women (and men) in France who are less than physically perfect. Rohmer has left them out of his film. However, it is hard to complain about the tradeoff of beauty for realism. The actors look great, the countryside of Provence looks great, even the grapes look great!

igkimm Like my counterpart Brogan I also saw this in the one and only 'independent' theater in a valley of 2.8m inhabitants-sad but true.Anyway I really enjoyed the film-the one thing I left the theater with was that this film does not give you the expected happy Hollywood ending that you really want but the knowledege that it will hopefully work out for Magalis and Gerald in their relationship. My only criticism was that it is difficult to follow a complicated script with subtitles-why dont they put them at the top of the screen... Anyway 8/10 from me.Go see it.