Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery
by Eric Rohmer
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Actor: Barbet Schroeder, Claudine Soubrier, Fred Junk, Michèle Girardon, Michel MardoreDirector: Eric Rohmer
Producer: Barbet Schroeder
Cinematographer: Bruno Barbey
Cinematographer: Daniel Lacambre
Cinematographer: Jean-Michel Meurice
Editor: Eric Rohmer
Writer: Eric Rohmer
Producer: G. Derocles
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 78 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-04-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Fox Lorber
DVD Reviews of Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery
DVD Review: A master begins his great theme and variations
Summary: 5 Stars
THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU (1963), the first of Eric Rohmer's "6 Moral Tales", runs only a bit over 20 minutes, but it manages to pack plenty of depth in that short time frame. The seeds of the future films in the series are already in place: a self-absorbed though basically decent young man falls in love with a young woman from afar, complications ensue, the man makes a decision believing smugly that he's doing the right thing for all, the audience is left to ponder.
Here the nameless young man - played by inveterate New Wave presence Barbet Schroeder but dubbed and narrated by Bertrand Tavernier - falls for a stylish and model-gorgeous young woman named Sylvie. He tries desperately to meet her and with the help of a friend manages to bump into her and get a promise for a coffee at some point in the near future. But she vanishes, and as he haunts the area in which he has seen her, he starts to go to the same bakery every day for a cookie, and eventually befriends the young clerk there, Jacqueline. He tells himself that he's not attracted to her, that she is more or less beneath him - but he's also convinced that she's attracted to him. Eventually he pushes himself on her rather aggressively and she accepts his invitation for a date...and then fate intervenes.
This had much the feel of a Henry James story to me - if Henry James ever were as "light" and brief as Rohmer is here. The self-absorbed man is incapable of really understanding or feeling how his actions might impact others, and has an answer for any indiscretion or thoughtless behavior; even at the end when he seems to have gotten his heart's desire, we have to wonder if he's learned anything. Very cheaply and quickly shot on grainy 16 mm in black and white, this has an immediacy and simplicity that helps to concentrate the simple story and make it seem a bit more than it actually is. A nice beginning.
SUZANNE'S CAREER, the 2nd in the series, is a short (just under an hour) feature from the same year, like the previous film not theatrically released at the time, and also post-dubbed and cheaply shot in 16mm black and white. The actors are mostly non-professionals and occasionally the lack of experience shows, but the feel of Paris and youth and excitement rings through regardless of the "amateurishness" on display. Though the basic storyline is again fairly simple, this is an altogether darker and more cynical tale, and it's narrator is left at least a little bit shaken up and disabused of some of his notions of self over the course of the several weeks of a Parisian winter that transpire.
Bertrand, the narrator, is a shy and introspective young man who is very much attracted to the gorgeous Sophie, with whom he feels he has little chance; he makes friends early on in the film with Suzanne, a less conventionally attractive but quite outgoing young woman who is also acquainted with Sophie, and he seems a bit taken with her - but then his best friend, Guillaume, who has a huge and deserved reputation as a player, steps in and starts to romance Suzanne. Bertrand quickly dismisses her as someone no more worth his efforts than she is Guillaume's; at one point he points out that his friend only chooses for his conquests women who are beneath him - perhaps his own way of suggesting that he doesn't feel bad that he's not as lucky in love as Guillaume.
But he keeps running into Suzanne, and her relationship with Guillaume is quickly strained. At one point the two men decide to take advantage of Suzanne and bleed her dry of money over a couple of days - but she seems not to mind at first. Suzanne remains as enigmatic as the narrator throughout and it seems inevitable that the two of them will eventually connect in some way through their frustrations - but they don't. As in the earlier tale, Bertrand eventually finds himself able to spend more time with the woman he's really attracted to - but in this case, it's unclear whether it will blossom into anything, and Suzanne, finally left by both Guillaume and Bertrand, finds love and happiness elsewhere, leaving our narrator to ponder whether in fact he's been going about it all wrong.
This is a rather harsher take on the foibles of modern love and dating, with none of the four principals coming off all that well save perhaps Sophie - and she's the least developed. Bertrand supports and defends his buddy though he knows deep down that Guillaume is just using women and is a scoundrel - but whether this is because Bertrand idolizes his friend for achieving something he can't, or that he feels a moral superiority to the lying ladies' man, we can't ever know for sure. Suzanne seems a bit more honest in her dealings with the men, to their faces, but perhaps not to herself; and Sophie, secure in her desirability, remains aloof and away from most of the drama. It's at heart a rather tough and steely-eyed little film that compares interestingly to films like Agnés Varda's LE BONHEUR (1965) or Jean-Luc Godard's MASCULIN FEMININ (1966) in its very unromantic view of romance amongst the youth of mid-60s France. A little less "charming" than the Rohmer many have come to know and love, but no less penetrating and insightful.
The Fox Lorber DVD is certainly watchable enough; if you're interested in the whole set of "tales", go with the more expensive but much better Criterion box set.
More Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery reviews:
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Description of Suzanne's Career/Girl at the Monceau Bakery
In 1962, after having completed only one failed feature, critic turned director Eric Rohmer embarked on an ambitious plan to shoot six films around a common theme and a similar plot. With only limited resources at his disposal, the first two of his Six Moral Tales are short works shot in 16mm black-and-white. "The Girl at the Monceau Bakery" is a 25-minute sketch that sets the basic premise of the series: a young man interested in one woman is briefly attracted to a totally different girl. Shot on the streets of Paris with an easy naturalism and dominated by the young man's voice-over thoughts, it sets the tone of the series with a deft style, unforced humor, and an ironic tone. "Suzanne's Profession" expands to over 50 minutes to explore the awkward triangle between two best friends and a generous, seductive young woman they both shamelessly take advantage of. The men are callow, the women rather exasperating, the talk isn't as enchanting as in later films--and the ending feels, in retrospect, like an early draft of My Night at Maud's with the roles reversed. If his later films are more compelling and assured, the ambiguity of relationships and mercenary behavior of the characters in this early effort reveal a harsh cynicism that later mellowed into a wry irony. --Sean AxmakerBestsellers in DVD
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