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In 1962, filmmaker Eric Rohmer, a key figure in the post-war New Wave cinema in France and former editor of Cahiers du cinema began working on his seventh film, “The Bakery Girl of Monceau” (La boulangère de Monceau), a short film which would be the starting point for six films known as “Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales”.
The film has been released by The Criterion Collection as part of the DVD box set “Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales” that would deal with relationships but morality as the characters are shown in remarkable depth as they reflect on themselves, their feelings about religion to other things in life that many people deal with or think about but are not typically featured in films. The characters are at the forefront of Rohmer’s films and for the most part, the people he tends to feature are intelligent, articulate and literary young people, a different perspective of French cinema compared to other director’s covering youth in their films.
“The Bakery Girl of Monceau” is not a straightforward tale about a young man (played by Barbet Schroeder) who goes to college with his friend Schmidt and every time they are walking home, they keep passing by this beautiful young woman named Sylvie (played by Michele Girardon), who is always on her way to work at an art gallery in rue de Monceau. Each time they are within arms length from each other, the young man and Sylvie tend to exchange short glances and the young man is absolutely smitten by her.
Schmidt tries to tell him to just talk to her but the young man is quite shy. But Schmidt finds a way in order for his friend to meet Sylvie by accident when the two bump in to each other.
But after that point of meeting each other and with college ending, the young man who hoped to see Sylvie again doesn’t see her anymore. With Schmidt having left the area, the young man would looked everywhere in Monceau for Sylvie and days.
While looking for Sylvie, the young man would frequent a little bakery in the corner of rue Lebeouteux to grab some snacks to eat. The bakery is where he met the young bakery girl Jacqueline (Claudine Soubrier). The moral dilemma for the young man is if should he continue to look for Sylvie who he fell in love with in first sight or go for Jacqueline, the bakery girl he tends to see each day?
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“The Bakery Girl of Monceau” is presented in 1:33:1 black and white. Eric Rohmer is very big on 1:33:1 aspect ratio for his films. The picture quality for this 1962 film is OK considering the film is nearly 50-years-old. There are some scratches and dust that can be seen and there is a fine layer of grain that can be seen on the film. According to Criterion, Director Eric Rohmer supervised and approved the high-definition digital transfer, which was created on a Spirit Datacine 35mm fine-grain master positive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System.
As for audio, the film is in mono, center channel driven. Criterion mentions that the soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from an optical soundtrack and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss and crackle. I preferred to listen to the film with my receiver set on stereo on all channels but dialogue is clear and understandable.
Subtitles are in English and subtitles are nice and clear with a black stroke around the character type.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“The Bakery Girl of Monceau” contains the following special features:
- Presentation or Charlotte and Her Steak (1951) – (19:54) Sometime in the 1950’s, Eric Rohmer as writer and Jean-Luc Godard as director worked on a project called “Charlotte et Veronique”. The short film known as “All the Boys are Called Patrick” was featured in the Criterion Collection of Godard’s “Une femme est une femme”. For “Charlotte and Her Steak” (Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak), this short film revolves around a guy named Walter (Godard) who likes a young woman named Charlotte and introduces her to another woman named Clara. He goes to her home with her to talk with her while she cooks and eats a steak and he decides to let her know how he truly feels. Voices are done by Jean-Luc Godard, Stephane Audrana and Anna Karina.
- Moral Tales, Filmic issues – (1:24:03) In a rare interview, producer Barbet Schroeder (who plays the young man in “The Bakery Girl of Monceau”) interviews Eric Rohmer in April 2006. This is a very interesting and informative interview because Rohmer rarely appears in interviews and this one is quite long. The two talk about cinema, Rohmer’s “Six Moral Tales”, filming in black and white and then in color, use or lack of use of music, filming in 1:33:1, watching films on DVD and the future of filmmaking.
“The Bakery Girl of Monceau” is an innocent short film. It’s not as deep as Rohmer’s other films and its pretty much a short film at 23 minutes but it’s the moral story that is quite impressive. A young man who loves a woman, but yet never sees her and ends up being attracted to the bakery girl knowing that he doesn’t love her in the same manner as he does with the other. But it’s the “moral tales” of a man and his conscience deciding if what he is doing is right or wrong and in this case, where other Hollywood films at the time always focused on temptation, Rohmer’s films don’t.
As entertaining as this film is in part of the collection, the real meat and bones of this certain DVD is the interview between Barbet Schroeder and Eric Rohmer. The fact is Rohmer rarely does interviews and this is the first in-depth interview I have seen with him ever. Especially an interview that is nearly an hour and a half long. For anyone who loves Rohmer’s work, this is one of those interviews that you’re just glad that you watched it. This is probably one of the best featurettes we’ll ever see of this legendary filmmaker.
Also, it’s great to see another “Charlotte” short film collaboration between Rohmer and Godard included on this DVD.
Overall, “Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales” is in my opinion one of the best DVD box sets in the collection. This first film, is an earlier work and it is his shortest film of his “Six Moral Tales” but it’s still a very solid film that showcases man’s conscience and questioning the morality of their actions of what they could get themselves into if they pursue that direction. Although a short film,”The Bakery Girl of Monceau” is an entertaining film and the DVD definitely is worth watching especially for the interview portion and I’m pretty glad that its included in this box set.
