This is an unmatched portrait of Paris, in the transition from the 50's to the 60's: along the one-man plot Rohmer with detailed even if seemingly improvised vignettes of lovers, friends, good-for-nothing and multi-racial Paris, gives a - did I say portrait? Make that miniature tableau, epic snow-ball. This is definitely not a time-capsule, or a period piece; it holds better than most existentialism imbibed artistic endeavors.
I really loved the sarcastic joke on Camus: remember when in the beginning, Wesselrin (what a name!),our musician protagonist, throwing that party for the alleged inheritance, calls one of the guests, a "dear friend" he calls him, Camus, only to find out that his name has a bare acoustical resemblance; so much for a musical ear, and Camus' existential themes.
It is astonishing how Rohmer manages to portray Wesselrin's downfall: with a sure hand and perfectly nuanced, he proves a master of simplicity. Of course he is aided in his vision by Jess Hahn's also exquisitely nuanced performance. This American-in-Paris who, as he ambiguously says at a certain point, could be "Swiss, anyone", has an allegorical allure that maybe surpasses Godard's takes on matters of Franco-American relations. This is what makes Rohmer's mystification of chance poignant rather than the elbow-in-your-face ending which is actually out at the elbows. I found the ending out of tone, plain bad: why since Rohmer has arguably the best musical ear (his fondu enchaine is so eloquent) in terms of fluid cinematic structure, and since he out-did Camus with that early joke and this man's downfall in Paris, in situ (not some exotic colonialist alibi, he seems to say - their temperaments are so opposite), why then this gratuitous ending? It downplays the earlier comedy of class and fortune. (Read how "Known" he is in "certain artistic circles" a newspaper reports in length after he is found out as a millionaire, this article thus mocking the cosmopolitan, investigative journalism of his friends. This is also fine. Early Rohmer seems more engaged and edgy in the frustrations of metropolitan modernity, but it is unfortunate he sometimes shies off into almost pre-modern mechanics; he is usually referred to as having a Mozartean quality. We should then have in mind that automatons played an important role in Mozart, being one of the first installments of modernity and exposing the mechanics of desire. In the film's case the automaton of chance somewhat mystifies, if it does not travesty, the specifics of the Capital. Rohmer does not engage in that kind of investigation, unless it is in the gag just before the ending, when the music played is "something modern, anyway" as one of the bourgeois, clueless couples attending the performance inanely reports to her friend.)
And then there is Jean de Poulain as the clochard with a bravura performance, perfectly in tune with getting us out of the stupor of following Wesselrin in his degradation, only to throw us in the high-pitched and bathetic boulevard of class; his appearance has something to do I bet with the Godot craze of the times, and one sees the parallel universes they inhabit.
Airy as Raoul Dufy, with one or two glib charcoal lines as in Bernard Buffet's portraits, "Le Signe du Lion" shines as one of the most lively portraits of Paris of any time.
I really loved the sarcastic joke on Camus: remember when in the beginning, Wesselrin (what a name!),our musician protagonist, throwing that party for the alleged inheritance, calls one of the guests, a "dear friend" he calls him, Camus, only to find out that his name has a bare acoustical resemblance; so much for a musical ear, and Camus' existential themes.
It is astonishing how Rohmer manages to portray Wesselrin's downfall: with a sure hand and perfectly nuanced, he proves a master of simplicity. Of course he is aided in his vision by Jess Hahn's also exquisitely nuanced performance. This American-in-Paris who, as he ambiguously says at a certain point, could be "Swiss, anyone", has an allegorical allure that maybe surpasses Godard's takes on matters of Franco-American relations. This is what makes Rohmer's mystification of chance poignant rather than the elbow-in-your-face ending which is actually out at the elbows. I found the ending out of tone, plain bad: why since Rohmer has arguably the best musical ear (his fondu enchaine is so eloquent) in terms of fluid cinematic structure, and since he out-did Camus with that early joke and this man's downfall in Paris, in situ (not some exotic colonialist alibi, he seems to say - their temperaments are so opposite), why then this gratuitous ending? It downplays the earlier comedy of class and fortune. (Read how "Known" he is in "certain artistic circles" a newspaper reports in length after he is found out as a millionaire, this article thus mocking the cosmopolitan, investigative journalism of his friends. This is also fine. Early Rohmer seems more engaged and edgy in the frustrations of metropolitan modernity, but it is unfortunate he sometimes shies off into almost pre-modern mechanics; he is usually referred to as having a Mozartean quality. We should then have in mind that automatons played an important role in Mozart, being one of the first installments of modernity and exposing the mechanics of desire. In the film's case the automaton of chance somewhat mystifies, if it does not travesty, the specifics of the Capital. Rohmer does not engage in that kind of investigation, unless it is in the gag just before the ending, when the music played is "something modern, anyway" as one of the bourgeois, clueless couples attending the performance inanely reports to her friend.)
And then there is Jean de Poulain as the clochard with a bravura performance, perfectly in tune with getting us out of the stupor of following Wesselrin in his degradation, only to throw us in the high-pitched and bathetic boulevard of class; his appearance has something to do I bet with the Godot craze of the times, and one sees the parallel universes they inhabit.
Airy as Raoul Dufy, with one or two glib charcoal lines as in Bernard Buffet's portraits, "Le Signe du Lion" shines as one of the most lively portraits of Paris of any time.