Rating: 
Summary: Anthem of a Paedophile
Review: In the 70's films such as this were the stable viewing fodder of the middle class intelligentsia. Searching for something which was not a Mills and Boon romance or an action adventure movie films such as there were seen as sensative and relevant. In reality this film is not about much at all. An upper middle class male about to marry holidays with a friend. He meets two young women, one ugly (she is not but she has frizzy hair) and another beautiful. He desires to touch the knee of the attracitve one but she finds him rather repellent. He has a sort of teasing relationship with the other one and messes up her life. The end of the film allows our hero to manipulate the grief of Claire so that he can achieve his amibition of touching her knee. It is hard know to realise the attraction of this film. The dialouge is long winded and tedious. The characters talk endlessly but never about anything. The attraction of the film is more about the style of the film rather than the content or the form. The house in which the action takes place and the country side are beautifull. The characters have a sort of sophistication around their life, what they drink, what they eat which has been attractive to those outside France. The two female leads are gorgous and the film is well acted. The only negative is that it is a boring talkative film which is about a self indulgent bore. One sees it and thinks a nuclear war destroying all these characters would not be the end of the world. Still some people probably like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great film, poor DVD.
Review: Like all of the Fox/Lorber releases of Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" film series, I'd give this film 5 stars for content, especially if you enjoy writer/director Eric Rohmer's subtle, deliberatly paced, conversational style. His films crawl into your consciousness slowly and before you know it you're hooked. Unfortunatly I'd give the DVD transfer 1 star as it looks and sounds no better than Fox/Lorber's currently available VHS version and there are no extras to speak of except for incomplete director and star filmography listings. The film is not presented in its original aspect ratio and the French subtitles are burned into the print and so are not removable from the screen. Thus average rating: 3 stars. END
Rating:
Summary: Great film, poor DVD.
Review: Like all of the Fox/Lorber releases of Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" film series, I'd give this film 5 stars for content, especially if you enjoy writer/director Eric Rohmer's subtle, deliberatly paced, conversational style. His films crawl into your consciousness slowly and before you know it you're hooked. Unfortunatly I'd give the DVD transfer 1 star as it looks and sounds no better than Fox/Lorber's currently available VHS version and there are no extras to speak of except for incomplete director and star filmography listings. The film is not presented in its original aspect ratio and the French subtitles are burned into the print and so are not removable from the screen. Thus average rating: 3 stars. END
Rating: 
Summary: A 5 star film; but yet another mediocre DVD from Fox Lorber.
Review: The title of this charming film by Eric Rohmer is perhaps too provocative. It really gives the wrong impression, yet Claire's knee is exactly the central point of the film, although in a way that will surprise you. This is the story about a thirty-something year old diplomat, Jerome Montcharvin, who encounters two pretty girls, sixteen and eighteen years old, while on vacation at Lake Annecy in France (near Lake Geneva, Switzerland) a month before his wedding and finds that they affect him more strongly than he might have expected. It is especially Claire who brings out a side of his personality that is seldom exposed, much to the merry interest of his friend, Aurora, a writer, who has guided his interest in the girls, ostensibly as material for a story she is writing. Claire's Knee, it need be said immediately has not so much to do with the pretty girl's knee as it has to do with the protagonist's self-perception. Jean-Claude Brialy, who plays Jerome Montcharvin, brings a veracious mix of smug confidence and little guy vulnerability to the part spiked with a clear case of self-delusion that illuminates his character very well. And the girls are indeed very pretty, with Laura, played with coquettish innocence by Béatrice Romand, also being clever and slyly sophisticated, vulnerable and honest. In contrast Claire, played by Laurence de Monaghan, whose fawn-like beauty is perfect for the part, seems superficial and ordinary and a bit distant. I found myself more attracted to Aurora, played with a gentle and understated irony by Aurora Cornu. She provides the objectifying point of view for us to realize that while Jerome imagines he is a man in touch with his feelings and has an objective understanding of himself, he is really a man who fools himself about his motivation, a man who can be ugly when frustrated, as he is by Claire's lack of interest in him. The dialogue, written by director Eric Rohmer, which some have found excessive is anything but. It is instead clever and witty and at times profound as Rohmer relentlessly explores the nature of love, sex, sensuality and self-delusion. The cinematography of the lake and the French alps in the summer time is luscious, and the privileged, softly indulgent life style of the characters living around the lake provoked a twinge of jealousy in my soul. This is a beautiful film, worldly wise, warm, sensual and subtle as a dinner by candlelight.
Rating: 
Summary: Warm, sensual and beautifully presented
Review: The title of this charming film by Eric Rohmer is perhaps too provocative. It really gives the wrong impression, yet Claire's knee is exactly the central point of the film, although in a way that will surprise you. This is the story about a thirty-something year old diplomat, Jerome Montcharvin, who encounters two pretty girls, sixteen and eighteen years old, while on vacation at Lake Annecy in France (near Lake Geneva, Switzerland) a month before his wedding and finds that they affect him more strongly than he might have expected. It is especially Claire who brings out a side of his personality that is seldom exposed, much to the merry interest of his friend, Aurora, a writer, who has guided his interest in the girls, ostensibly as material for a story she is writing. Claire's Knee, it need be said immediately has not so much to do with the pretty girl's knee as it has to do with the protagonist's self-perception. Jean-Claude Brialy, who plays Jerome Montcharvin, brings a veracious mix of smug confidence and little guy vulnerability to the part spiked with a clear case of self-delusion that illuminates his character very well. And the girls are indeed very pretty, with Laura, played with coquettish innocence by Béatrice Romand, also being clever and slyly sophisticated, vulnerable and honest. In contrast Claire, played by Laurence de Monaghan, whose fawn-like beauty is perfect for the part, seems superficial and ordinary and a bit distant. I found myself more attracted to Aurora, played with a gentle and understated irony by Aurora Cornu. She provides the objectifying point of view for us to realize that while Jerome imagines he is a man in touch with his feelings and has an objective understanding of himself, he is really a man who fools himself about his motivation, a man who can be ugly when frustrated, as he is by Claire's lack of interest in him. The dialogue, written by director Eric Rohmer, which some have found excessive is anything but. It is instead clever and witty and at times profound as Rohmer relentlessly explores the nature of love, sex, sensuality and self-delusion. The cinematography of the lake and the French alps in the summer time is luscious, and the privileged, softly indulgent life style of the characters living around the lake provoked a twinge of jealousy in my soul. This is a beautiful film, worldly wise, warm, sensual and subtle as a dinner by candlelight.
Rating:
Summary: Get Over It!
Review: This is my favorite film by one of the greatest (and subtlest) writer/directors in world cinema, and its distressingly mediocre rating from so many reviewers here seems solely due to the American cultural hangup with an older man flirting with younger girls. But the absurdity of such attractions is exactly what this movie is about! The character of Jerome spends the entire film articulately rationalizing away his very real desire for a young girl who disdains him--finally fixating upon a single touch of her knee as a way to expiate any power she seems to hold over him. This film is about a man struggling with his own weakness and his own denial. There is absolutely nothing unseemly in any of Eric Rohmer's handling of this subject, and, indeed, the character of 15-year-old Laura, the girl who is kissed and embraced by the older Jerome, is one of the most knowing and self-possessed characters in the film. Her ultimate snub of Jerome when, too-little-too-late, he comes to appreciate her, is a key to the subtle humiliation to which Rohmer subjects Jerome. This film is a masterful examination of how people can speak one way and *act* another because of the power of their desires, and anyone who finds it offensive in some way should just get over it! Take your cultural baggage somewhere else.
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