Of all the great moral questions facing creative artists in the early 1960s, "tactics employed by young men in their pursuit of beautiful women" may not have been the most urgent or controversial theme upon which to build a series of films. But it's certainly a premise that many movie viewers can relate to. Judging by writer and director Eric Rohmer's sustained focus on the dilemmas encountered when a man finds his desires pulled in two different directions, it's clear that he studied the topic quite intently. Whether that was based on extensive personal experience (he did have children with two different women) or merely close observation of those around him is hard to say. Rohmer was notoriously private about his personal life, preferring to keep the conversation restricted to his films and the ideas behind them - on those subjects, he was quite forthcoming, as we see on the first disc of Criterion's lavishly appointed Six Moral Tales box set. Even though The Bakery Girl of Monceau is the main feature on that DVD, it's only 26 minutes long, leaving plenty of room on the disc to include an hour-and-a-half conversation between Rohmer and his fellow director Barbet Schroeder as they talk expansively about the series and what Rohmer was trying to express in these six films that launched a career destined to stretch out another 40+ years.
Since the Moral Tales were filmed over the span of a decade, I'm not going to watch them in close proximity to each other for this blog, though the second entry, Suzanne's Career, is up next due to the fact that neither of the films were released theatrically until after the later, feature length titles had found a popular audience. Thus, there's no IMDb release date to be found and so I'm including them at the end of 1963, the year they were completed.
The story: two law students are nearing the end of their spring term, gearing up for final exams a few weeks later. Their daily afternoon routine leads them to cross paths with Sylvie, a pretty young woman that one of them finds attractive, or more significantly "his type," since social class ranks every bit as high in his criteria as simple physical appeal. But because he determines her to not be the kind of woman open to a straightforward pick-up on the street, he and his buddy analyze every furtive glance and subtle clue to be found in her stride, her pace and the bearing of her head. They contrive ways to learn more about her without obviously appearing to do so. The opening minutes of the film are amusing enough as Rohmer makes light of the vanity and insecurity of guys who tangle themselves up by over-thinking their romantic pursuits (though under-thinking has also led to quite a few problems in this regard.)
After the protagonist (who remains unnamed throughout) contrives his first actual verbal exchange with Sylvie, a brief fumbling sort of "how do you do?", the stage is set for him to finally ask her out. But she disappears from the scene, without explanation, nowhere to be seen over the next several afternoons and evenings. Undaunted by this unexpected disruption to his routine, the young man has a decision to make: he could just forget about her and focus on his studies, or he could double-down on the obsession, increasing the time he spends wandering the neighborhood and thereby improve the odds that they'll once again "randomly" cross paths again.
You can figure out which moral choice he makes...
By sacrificing his evening meal time in order to maintain his roaming vigil, he starts frequenting a bakery where he can grab a quick snack to fill up on without the distraction of sitting down for a full service (and time-consuming) dinner. His daily patronage initiates a process of mild flirtations between himself and the 18 year old shop girl who works behind the counter. But he regards her as inferior and comes to resent her presumption that there might be some kind of thing going on between them. The circumstances reveal him to indeed be quite self-absorbed and condescending, not to mention cruel and contemptuous in his outlook on others. But whereas some reviewers find him repulsive (and I don't fault them for this), I think Rohmer's more interested in honestly portraying a common outlook held by most people, especially at that age, without adornment or exaggeration. Of course, not everyone dismisses or disrespects others based on how they rank in the social hierarchy, but we all have our reasons for sneering at those we consider beneath us, whatever that difference might be. The student's sense of superiority and entitlement is the flip-side of self-confidence, the coin we polish up and spend as needed in order to thrust ourselves into risky ventures that would end up in failure if we find ourselves lacking enough of that currency.
Circumstances lead the student into a predicament where he has to decide whether or not he show up for a date with The Bakery Girl of Monceau, a rendez-vous he set up with basically malicious, manipulative intentions. The story ends up with a nice little ironic twist that I won't spoil here, but you can watch it for yourself in the two clips embedded below.
Part 1
Part 2
The Bakery Girl of Monceau's brevity, directness and simplicity are among its greatest charms, along with the simple enjoyment offered by its candid Parisian location shots. Those appealing aspects of the film were forced by necessity - after he was done with his day job, Rohmer shot the scenes in the late afternoon in the neighborhood immediately surrounding his office, and he had to keep it short since the project was self-funded and each additional minute of film added significant cost. As an apprentice work, Rohmer didn't think the film was polished enough to charge admission to a general audience. His opinion was shared by the French studios who rejected his pitch, leading him to partner with Schroeder create his own production company, Les Films du Losange. To an extent, I agree; The Bakery Girl of Monceau is too slight to stand on its own without the surrounding context of a longer series that at the time was just a conceit in its creators mind (and a short story collection, included in the box in an English translation.) But as an introduction to further variations on a theme, it's a wonderful example of how an effective, memorable story can be told under the restrictions of no production budget or recognized actors whatsoever. Fortunately, Rohmer would soon find the backing to bring the rest of his Moral Tales to a broader and more receptive audience.
Next: Suzanne's Career