The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, September 28-October 4
Love in the Afternoon (1972)
Directed by Éric Rohmer
No film has asked more simply, nor more eloquently, what do you do when your heart is split between two people? Closing out his series of now legendary Six Moral Tales, Rohmer has all the fun he can in the early stages of this investigation, playing games and having fun with his wandering eyed hero. It’s when the games stop, the excuses flee, and there’s the simple fact of another person’s eyes boring a hole in your resolve, that this film becomes serious as a heart attack. Rohmer’s point was always that we’re the only voice that will come through for you when presented with moral hardship. God, it turns out, is never in the room with you when someone offers you temptation. Especially when you want it as badly as they do. Rohmer turns a bedroom into a kind of church, a site of confession and reflection, the place where the soul is found or abandoned. He knows that the ten seconds between question and answer can feel like eternity. You don’t win prizes for making the right choice, you just live with it. The righteous path is frequently the lonely one, even if you’re not alone. Scout Tafoya (September 28, 29, 6:45pm, 8:45pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s presentation of the Six Moral Tales)