Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (5 stars) $19.99
Six Moral Tales by eric Rohmer (5 stars) $99.95
L' enfant (4 stars) $24.96
Francophobes the world over love to poke fun at Gallic filmmakers, who, they argue, continue to worship at the altar of Jerry Lewis and consider the ignition of a cigarette to be a sacramental act. American comedians and pundits have long exploited this stereotype for cheap laughs, but, at a time when Hollywood no longer can disguise its addiction to fart jokes and teen angst, the gag has lost its sting. The Criterion Collection's Six Moral Tales by eric Rohmer provides all the ammunition any detractor would need to fuel another decade's worth of anti-French diatribes ... if anyone really cared anymore.
Talky, deliberately paced and smoke-shrouded, The Bakery Girl of Monceau, Suzanne's Career, My Night at Maud's, La Collectionneuse, Claire's Knee and Love in the Afternoon all focused on the choices made by adults when confronted with ethical dilemmas. Being French, they quite frequently also involved matters of the heart. Compared to the average Hollywood chase or pyrotechnic thriller, these titles are devoid of action. Nonetheless, they remain intellectually exhilarating and subversively sexy. Rohmer pitted his men and women against each other in philosophical, moral and theological combat and invited audiences to come along for the ride. They weren't for everyone, then or now ... but you wouldn't want them to be.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's L'enfant won the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival, and, not surprisingly, was only accorded half-hearted distribution here a year later. It tells the story of a pair of Belgian slackers who support themselves on the petty thievery and street wiles of cold-hearted Bruno (Jérémie Renier). Sonia (Déborah François) is Bruno's lover, who, while pretty, allows herself to be manipulated and abused. In the arrival of their infant child, Bruno sees an opportunity for windfall profits. He badly misjudges Sonia's devotion to the child, and, after selling it to an anonymous child broker, is forced to recoil from her wrath and reconsider his own career path. As in the Rohmer titles, L'enfant demands of the audience that it make moral choices. Foremost among them is forgiveness.
The extras in L'enfant are limited to filmmaker interviews, which are informative but awfully dense. The Criterion Collection overflows with wonderful supplemental material, including shorts, booklets, interviews and background material.