La femme de l’aviateur (The Aviator's Wife)

Don’t panic: fans of Rohmer’s lofty, literary style can rest easy. La Femme de l’aviateur is still structured around a handful of talking characters, but the subjects they discuss so delicately are less high-flown. Whereas the Contes moraux spun variations on self-imposed theoretical principles, the Comédies et proverbes are more closely attuned to the practicalities of the ‘mundane’ matters that interest Rohmer: the compromises in love, the precarious nature of human relationships, the tensions between fidelity and seduction, the tug-of-war between romantic and pragmatic love.

The story is deceptively simple, but through the meandering way in which it is told, it develops into something extremely refined.
François (Philippe Marlaud), who sorts post at night at the Gare de l’Est, is in love with the slightly older Anne (Marie Rivière), who works during the day, so they rarely see each other. One morning he sees her leaving the flat in the company of Christian (Mathieu Carrière), her ex and a pilot by profession. François suspects they have rekindled their former relationship, whilst in reality the pilot had come to announce his definitive return to his wife. When François later happens to spot his rival on a terrace in the company of an unknown young blonde, he decides to follow them. During this shadow operation, he strikes up a conversation with Lucie (Anne-Laure Meury), a 15-year-old schoolgirl who becomes fascinated by his amateur detective work. When they see the pair ringing the doorbell at a law firm, Lucie suggests an explanation that turns out to be incorrect, but which, via a curious detour, ultimately leads to the truth.

Although nothing particularly dramatic happens, Rohmer turns this hypothetical quest to uncover the identity of ‘the pilot’s wife’ into a subtly suspenseful comedy driven by curiosity. Rohmer once co-authored with Claude Chabrol the first serious study of Hitchcock’s work, and he has clearly assimilated the master’s lessons without losing his own distinctive style as a director. The result is a suspense film without crime, without menace, and all the more focused on interpretation, misunderstandings and projection. The tension lies in the act of watching and misinterpreting. The light-hearted premise leads to gentle and charming humour. This is expressed in the development of the many red herrings and in the interruptions to the detective work – for example, when the weary François falls asleep at crucial moments, which Rohmer visualises with an old-fashioned iris (a technique Truffaut also used on several occasions).

Once again, Rohmer makes the most of the natural setting in which the simple plot unfolds playfully. He is an expert in what the French so beautifully call “l’inscription de la fiction dans une banalité documentaire”. At first glance, Paris looks ordinary, but gradually takes on something enigmatic, almost slightly unreal, which even brings to mind Louis Feuillade’s Serials, filmed on location in Paris.

In the masterful middle section, in which François and Lucy follow the pilot and his companion through the popular Buttes-Chaumont park, Rohmer transforms—without any technical flourishes—the familiar images of day-trippers and walkers on sun-drenched lawns and around a tranquil pond into a remarkable form of everyday poetry. It is in this setting that the subtle romance between François and Lucie begins to blossom. Ironically, they themselves do not realise that they may be developing feelings for one another, whilst at the same time conjuring up the wildest theories about the couple they are shadowing. In particular, the scene involving a Polaroid photograph intended to serve as evidence is a magnificent display of timing, imagination and playful choreography. François and Lucy create a fiction within a fiction – a kind of mirror of Rohmer’s own filmmaking practice.

It is no small achievement of La Femme de l’aviateur that everything – from the loosely meandering plot, driven by the young duo’s imagination, to the strong performances – gives the impression of effortless ease. It feels as though we are watching a film that is still taking shape and, just like the unpredictable characters, could go in any direction. Following the deliberately artificial Perceval le Gallois—a standalone film shot entirely in hyper-stylised studio sets—La Femme de l’aviateur is formally and strikingly modest. The film was shot in natural settings with a small crew of barely six people. Rohmer turns his back on the then-prevalent aestheticised visual culture and opts for grainy 16mm footage and a sober narrative style devoid of visual embellishment. After all, cinematic intelligence is something other than simply capturing pretty images – and La Femme de l’aviateur, with its seemingly ‘shabby’ presentation, provides clear proof of this. For Rohmer, this was also a return to the spirit of his early Nouvelle Vague period.

(Philippe Marlaud, the 21-year-old lead actor, was killed in an accident shortly after filming.)

- Patrick Duynslaegher