Reinette e Mirabelle

I love Eric Rohmer's movies mainly those in which, like in this one, he shows normal daily life that can have important episodes which can be gracious, humorous, even sometimes having poetry or a bit of mystery, unexpectedness and adventure. He shows his characters thinking and philosophizing about apparently simple things and behaviours and those thoughts often contrast with real life events. We can also see through the dialogues the contrast of the universe of values we may have in mind and the real world outside. In this movie two young girls meet by chance when one of them has got a flat tyre while riding a bicycle in the countryside and the other one offers to help her to solve the problem. From now on they become close friends though they are very different in temperament, mentality and behaviour. The one who lives in the country goes to Paris and the other one who lived there already, shares her apartment with her new friend. Both are university students, the Parisian one in Ethnology and the country one in Fine Arts. After the first adventure of her meeting they live in Paris 3 more episodes of daily life which were adventurous but without going much beyond the natural and ordinary and shown with great simplicity but also with great mastery. Only in my opinion the fourth and last episode is a bit too fanciful but the movie is good in its whole despite that.