La Collectionneuse (1967)

Directed by Éric Rohmer. Written by Patrick Bauchau, Haydée Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle, and Éric Rohmer.

Splendid summer vibes are ruined by obnoxious men in Éric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse as a self-involved art dealer heads to the Riviera for some rest and relaxation and becomes enthralled by a young woman.

How much you’ll enjoy it depends on how much male toxicity you can stand, what self-deluded lies you can stomach as you’re privy to every arrogant indulgence in a Rohmer film where insights are writ large. Fools aren’t undone here, they do themselves in.   

Patrick Bachau stars as Adrien, said art dealer, and credit due to Bachau, because Adrien’s easy to dislike. An arrogant solipsist completely blind to his own hypocrisy, he arrives in a bit of a huff because his girlfriend wouldn’t come with him. He shifts gears, states he actually wants to be by himself to collect his many weighty thoughts, but they quickly find themselves honing in on the girl already crashing at the enormous villa of their mutual friend. 

Together with his friend Daniel (Daniel Pommereulle), Adrien first belittles the girl’s looks, and is frustrated when she brings a boy home overnight. The girl Haydée, played by Haydée Politoff, also has a reputation, and the two men quickly call her a “collector”, a putdown predicated on the fact she sleeps with men the same way many men would like to sleep with women: with abandon, and for pleasure. 

The animosity is feeble pretense, and as La Collectionneuse goes along, we see just how feeble it is. If you’ve read Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes, the story of an animal who constantly shifts the goal posts to fit its self-perception, then you’ve already seen this movie.

Some things are worth looking at again, and the French Riviera is one of them. It looks wonderful through Rohmer’s lens, be it the sparkling clear water, the arid grass, or the deep green of the rustling trees that sway with the sea breeze. This is one of those postcard movies that could easily play without sound and still whisk you away.

You almost wish it could play out soundlessly, because this trip through charming towns and the countryside is marred by Adrien’s incessant voiceover, like an insufferable hitchhiker you deeply regret picking up. In letting Adrien narrate his thoughts, Rohmer makes plain Adrien’s bourgeois pettiness. It’s heavy-handed, and while witnessing hypocrisy and self-delusion is a juicy grape to squeeze, the one-note taste quickly fades. 

Rohmer’s tells his story with something near impatience and it’s a much more damning indictment compared to some of his other treatises on morality, sex, and selfhood, like Love In The Afternoon. Yes, it packs a punch, but the sensation’s more immediate than enduring as the crystal-clear outlook leaves little to the imagination. 

So, on one hand you have a great transportive summer film strong enough to let you escape any wintry gloom, but the cost is enduring a true fuckboy whose omnipresence almost overshadows an interesting look into gender politics, the battle of the sexes, and the vapid lifestyles of toxic men.     

Damn satisfying takedown of a womanizing weasel, though.