The Dream Sequence

To follow up on the first and last posters' heels, my own dream sequence is to have a boxset issued containing Rohmer's complete filmography. Now, that's a dream sequence to sustain one's imagination and hopes for a while. In any case, there are boxsets available here and there for other Rohmer's cycles: watch the usual markets for this.

Now, to comment on the dream sequence: I think it's Rohmer winking at us from the netherworld, and more. Let's not forget that L'amour l'après-midi is the last of the Six Contes Moraux, and that it is designed so as to wrap up the series. Let's also remind ourselves that each of these 6 films is built on a common theme, namely the meandering life of men who are enamored of a woman at the beginning of the story but get distracted by another woman, who represents various forms of temptations (e.g. the generic Easily Laid Girl in La Collectionneuse, the underage Pure Young Woman in Le Genou de Claire, the Liberated No-nonsense Experienced-but-Wise Woman in Ma Nuit chez Maude, etc.). And in L'amour l'après-midi, a naive, daydreaming and somewhat unsatisfied man meets the ultimate "temptatress", the Hypermanipulative Seductress from Hell, a master Spiderwoman whose interests in men mean some loot or prey for her to acquire. No way a man normally constituted can avoid the web traps that she weaves everywhere around her dwelling(s).... and this includes poor Frédéric! Here, Rohmer shows the maturity he has developed in his craft, and for the very first time, momentarily escapes from reality and brings us inside a character's imagination. This is a major new feature, and I really adored the little flashing whatchamacallit that Frédéric wears against his chest that enables him to control women's will.
As the previous posters very aptly mentioned, we see a procession of all previous "temptatresses", along with a few one-and-true women (e.g. Marie-Christine Barrault's character from Ma Nuit chez Maude), along with a few interesting "keys" that Rohmer shows us. Do they have an actual meaning intended by Rohmer as clues to some aspect of these women's "meaning" in the director's scheme? I guess it is highly likely, as one realizes upon repeated viewings of his movies, which are deceptively simple and seemingly unassertive. Not that I think that Rohmer's schemes are as convoluted as a Christopher Nolan's, far from it, but I think, for instance that at least a few of the cues that he provides us are meant to add some significance to previous characters and stories in the cycle. However, I am convinced that we must not take them at their first-degree or face value: for instance, I really don't think that Aurora is in fact a whore! No, but if we stay at the level of a dream, this symbolizes more clearly for us Aurora's role as the woman who offers some form of pleasure against some payment. Here, the reward for Jérôme is Aurora's interest - as a pair of ears and a literary pretext- for his dangerous wagers with teenager girls and his actual games with Laura and Claire; and the payment is the rejection and ridicule with which he gets in the end. Rohmer also shows us how much contempt Claire really had for Jérôme by presenting her in still excellent terms with her boyfriend - who truly respected and loved Claire, much to Jérôme's disillusionment - and asking the boyfriend permission to follow Frédéric/Jérôme, with a disparaging reference to Frédéric as the polo-neck guy, which of course anticipates the important role of that polo shirt. And as though this was not enough, he completes the Le Genou de Claire's reference with Laura who refuses any dealings with this married, mature bourgeois man, especially after having tasted the danger first with poor Jérôme, the borderline pedophile...

To summarize, one can extract a lot of information from the new keys that Rohmer gives us during that dream sequence, which is intentionally conceived as a kit for a better, fuller understanding of the Six Contes Moraux. Many questions having been left unresolved as the series was unfolding, Rohmer, who is by no means someone who leaves things to happen at random, may have had afterthoughts when he completed the writing and design of the complete cycle, and have used that very unusual scene (by Rohmer's standards) to send us clues that he felt needed to be presented formally, yet symbolically. We must also keep in mind that he had written only four tales when he first had this idea of filming a cycle, and as revealed in an interview (available as a special feature with the Criterion Collection boxset), he had this thing, this superstition with the number 6, which led him to imagine and write the outline of two additional "Contes Moraux". Thus, it is quite likely that he felt the need to attempt at a sort of an abstract synthesis of the complete cycle , and the usual strategy for a director to present that information in a movie is of course to use an oneiric sequence (here, daydreaming).

One can interpret the Tales and write endless analyses on the brilliance of this first opus by one of the great masters of cinema. I'll finish by just saying to Rohmer's detractors that I had not the foggiest idea that the drying of paint was that fascinating. It's better to leave the famous paint drying remark to Gene Hackman's character in "Night Moves", and invite all those of were influenced by it to sit down and pay attention just for a little while, It does not take much to get carried away and genuinely enjoy Rohmer's movies as much as the best that cinema has to offer anywhere by anybody,