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From: oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Pauline at the Beach
Message-ID: <2349@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 18:30:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2349
Posted: Tue Sep 27 18:30:54 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Sep-83 19:35:20 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 53

I sympathize partially with Mr Leler's comments.  "Pauline at the
Beach" is *not* a movie for everyone.  It is low-key, talky and short
on action.  The advertising is misleading and pretends that this is
a "racy" French sex-on-the-beach film.  I knew what I was getting
into, however, and I had a great time.  Some gripes:

"...'cause I didn't like "Get out your hankercheifs" either."

Huh?  I didn't like "Get out ..." myself.  Do you lump Woody Allen
and Francis Ford Coppola together just because they're both American?

"I thought the characters were shallow stereotypes with
little or no motivation."

True, Pauline, her admirer and her admiree are shallow -- types, certainly,
but not stereotypes.  The humour and insight in the film was derived
from the interaction of these types.  The characters have *let* themselves
become types by accepting a set of values as dogma without attention to how
that fits in with the rest of the world.  The blonde windsurfing puppy-dog
who moons after Pauline, for example, is utterly blind to the fact that
his behaviour is totally inappropriate for his goal of "conquering" Pauline.

"There was no plot."

Huh?  Sure there was.  Nobody got killed; there was no bank robbery;
James Bond didn't save the world from the Microwave Babies.  But there
most emphatically was a plot.

"The nudity was stilted and pretentious"

What does this mean???  I recall only flashes of nudity, and I don't
understand how it could be interpreted as "pretentious".  If anything
it was *unpretentious*, i.e. made no pretense at being more than it was --
that is, coincidental to the story.

"Worst of all, the cinematography was very poor."

I have to disagree here too.  Rohmer is not one for flashy cinematography
i.e. gratuitous camera motions, zooming, fading etc. etc.  He prefers to
use the camera almost as an objective bystander.  Recall that Rohmer does
not pass judgement on any of the characters in "Pauline".  They pass
judgement on each other, but he prefers to let us draw our own conclusions.
The use of a "passive camera" is entirely consistent with this goal.
I assume that "poor cinematography" is being equated with minimum flashiness.

I won't be surprised if there are many more net.moviegoers who won't like
"Pauline at the Beach".  One has to acquire a taste for this sort of cinema,
though I think Rohmer has done a fair job here of mixing social commentary
and "entertainment" (i.e. farce).  I don't hesitate in recommending this
film, but be forewarned that it in no way approaches the claims made in
the advertising blurbs.  (Most notably, it is *not* "erotic"!)

				Oscar Nierstrasz @ utcsrgv!oscar