THE AVIATOR'S WIFE (La Femme de l'aviateur) / FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE

ABOUT THE FILMS

THE AVIATOR’S WIFE, 1981, Metrograph Pictures, 108 min, Dir: Eric Rohmer

The inaugural film of Éric Rohmer’s “Comedies and Proverbs” cycle, THE AVIATOR’S WIFE is a fleecy farce of romantic overanalysis that finds the director exploring the possibilities of handheld camerawork in following a narrative expression of the opening epigraph: “It is impossible to think of nothing.” A young man sees his girlfriend’s ex leaving her apartment one early morning, and his imagination is off to the races, as stars Philippe Marlaud and Marie Rivière introduce a younger, less perfectly articulate type of Rohmer character than those of the “Moral Tales.”

FORMAT: New 35mm Print, courtesy of Metrograph Pictures

FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE , 1987, Metrograph Pictures, 102 min, Dir: Eric Rohmer

Directly following the conclusion of Éric Rohmer’s six-part “Comedies and Proverbs” series, came this breezy, witty film, which traces the exploits of two young women—one an ethnology student from the city, the other an unsophisticated aspiring artist from the country. Reinette and Mirabelle (played by Joëlle Miquel and Jessica Forde) become instant friends upon meeting in the first of four vignettes that make up the film (“The Blue Hour”), and in their first two days together, they decide to become roommates in Paris. Throughout the three remaining stories, they encounter many of the inevitable characters of a modern city: the impossible waiter (“The Waiter”), the Metro-station hustler (“The Beggar, the Kleptomaniac and the Hustler”), and the snooty gallery owner (“Selling the Painting”).