Written and directed by Éric Rohmer
Claire’s Knee is another Éric Rohmer film with immaculate vacation vibes that appear designed to gloss over the morally onerous behavior unfolding underneath the summer sun, as a man, soon to be married, takes on a challenge to “seduce” two teenage girls.
Jean-Claude Brialy plays Jerôme, the man in question. Mid- to late-30s, he’s marrying a Swedish woman in a month’s time. While she’s off working on a UNICEF mission, he’s lounging around a villa in the eastern parts of France budding against Switzerland. In town, he comes across Aurora, a writer and old lover who’s renting a room nearby. Stopping by her place, he meets Laura, 16 years old. Laura develops an instant crush on Jerôme, and Aurora eggs on Jerôme to seduce the smitten girl as fodder for Aurora’s writing.
All fun and games for the much older Jerôme. Unless…?
The knee in question comes later, as Laura’s slightly older step-sister Claire joins them at the vacation home. Claire being with someone (her own age) doesn’t stop Jerôme’s mind from slipping into the gutter, and the indulgent fun of his “relationship” with Laura takes on a more desperate edge with Claire. As much as he tries to rationalize and downplay his feelings in lengthy philosophical monologues that are a Rohmer special, Jerôme’s fooling only himself. Straight to morality jail, if not real jail in some countries.
The Éric Rohmer of this period loved teasing out what’s beyond the pale. Self-deluded boys on vacation were his subjects in La collectionneuse, and in Love In The Afternoon, released after Claire’s Knee, Jerôme has a brother in Fréderic, a bored husband who falls prey to easy temptation. Claire’s Knee is the waystation between the two, combining the former’s heady summertime exploration with the latter’s hairy moral subject matter.
Claire’s Knee is quintessential Rohmer, with (very) chit-chatty scenes where characters intellectualize their base desires in an attempt to hide themselves. Get ready to listen to the self-deluded. Jerôme’s a particular type of man, one who’s always trying to validate himself through the affection of women, testing the limits of physicality with Aurora, despite claiming friendship is the only thing between them, and readily indulging Aurora’s “challenge”. He’s happy to try and draw out Laura’s affections.
You’ll spend most of your time condemning Jerôme, but he’s also amusing. There’s considerable comedic pleasure in loquacious characters who talk the sun to bed without a shred of self-awareness, like a crusty politician holding forth while his fly’s open. Brialy’s great as Jerôme in this regard. An insecure blowhard dandy.
Rohmer’s tone is light throughout, and the summer setting gives everything an air of inconsequence. Yet, in this shameful game, there’s also a perversification of the formative experiences summertime offers the young, as Jerôme inserts himself and others must pay the price for his lessons. Claire’s Knee goes over easy, but lands with a resounding thump.
Grown people taking teenagers’ feelings for playthings (and trying to bed those same teenagers) certainly isn’t cool today, but it also wasn’t cool back in 70s France. That being said, France as a country has always had different ideas of what’s meant by consent and power dynamics. As late as 2021, having sex with a minor wasn’t necessarily considered rape. Laura and Claire are technically not minors, but the same ethical questions persevere. Claire’s Knee, with its sunkissed locale and unwhole people, is meant to be provocative. Back then, as well as today.
Mikkel Frederiksen 