Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons released in the Criterion Collection on February 13th, 2024.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Criterion Collection has compiled and released another collection of romantic classics. I already owned the beautifully packaged set of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy, and Rohmer’s quartet of films exploring the ups and downs of friendship and romance makes for a perfect companion piece. It’s wonderfully packaged with cover art that accurately captures the simplicity and beauty of the films themselves. With a price-tag of roughly $125, you’re getting each of these films, newly restored, four around thirty-one-dollars a piece.
Tales of the Four Seasons Plot
Also Read: Criterion Collection: Lone Star Review
With films set in France and spanning the 1990’s, Eric Rohmer’s Tales of Four Seasons encompasses four different stories of love, lust and loss. Each film is set during a different season of the year while tackling the tumultuousness stages of romance and friendship.
The Critique
Bypassing the tropes and cliches that can often accompany the romantic-genre, Rohmer’s quartet of films explore the deeper elements of relationships. Whether romantic or platonic, the navigation of relationships can be complex and difficult. It’s those real-life complexities that Rohmer looks to showcase using the natural beaty of France as a breathtaking backdrop.
In A Tale of Springtime (1990), the first of the four tales, a newly budding friendship, and the romantic entanglements that surround it, acts as the focal point. The older Jeanne (Anne Teyssèdre) and the younger, free-spirited Natacha (Florence Darel) learn that what they want for each other, and what they want for themselves, may not necessarily align. It’s a subtle, intimate examination of two individuals at varying stages of their lives navigating the same hurtles.
There are elements of Rohmer’s work that feel similar to the “mumblecore” genre of naturalistic filmmaking and understated performances. Relationships and dialogue carry the stories, each with characters exploring relationships and coming to terms with deeply personal aspects of themselves. What sets Tales of Four Seasons apart from the true mumblecore works of filmmakers like The Duplass Brothers and Noah Baumbach is the polished and refined nature Rohmer’s filmmaking style. His stories are stripped bare, allowing his stories to unravel within the realism of everyday life; however, he does so with a keen eye and precision that lacks the intentionally clumsy nature of the aforementioned films.
The Special Features
The special features boast new interviews recorded at Rohmer’s home in France, as well as excerpts from previously recorded radio interviews. We get the 2005 documentary chronicling the making of 1996’s A Tale of Summer, and two short films from Eric Rohmer, The Kreutzer Sonata (1956) and A Farmer in Montfaucon (1968).
We also get classic trailers and updated English subtitles.
Would I Recommend This Purchase? If you’re prepared to feel all of the emotions, Yes. Absolutely.
Is It Worth a Blind Buy? With a little bit of knowledge about what you’re getting, yes. Buy that box-set!
8/10
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