Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 78: Thu Mar 19

The Romance of Astrea & Celadon (Rohmer, 2007): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.40pm


This film is as part of the Eric Rohmer season and also screens on 15 March. Details here.

Chicago Reader review:
French filmmaker Eric Rohmer closed out his long and brilliant career with this charming, leisurely romantic comedy (2007), adapted from Honore d'Urfe's 17th-century novel L'Astree. The film revisits themes from Rohmer's earlier works but also continues his millennial experiment in fastidious costume drama, begun in 2001 with The Lady and the Duke. The fifth-century shepherd Celadon (Andy Gillet), accused of infidelity and spurned by his true love, Astrea (Stephanie Crayencour), plunges into the river to drown himself, but he's picked up downstream by a trio of lightly draped nymphs, who spirit him away to their community. Sharp ideas about love (from Celadon's brother and a clownish shepherd) and spiritual fidelity (from Celadon and a druid high priest) sustain the midsection of the movie before Rohmer wraps up with some foolishness involving Celadon in drag. Tales like these can often come off as flutey, but this one is elevated by its high intellectual tone, the luxuriant landscapes, and Rohmer's spare, unadorned style.
JR Jones

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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