Rohmer/Politics: From Royalism to Ecology

Abstract

On August 26, 1987, the release of L’’Ami de mon amie gave rise to one of the most rare controversies about Rohmer’s films, all the more rare (and intriguing) because it is overtly political. In Libération, Louis Skorecki titled his article “Rohmer au pays des merguez” (“Rohmer in the Country of Merguez”) and introduced a critical perspective he returns to in his chronicles ten years later: here is a universe of white men, free of diversiry, where other races and people, ordinary people and extras from foreign countries, are absent. The critic writes:

Eric Rohmer spends very little time with people in his films. [In L’Ami de mon amie] he once again met the people; the mob itself. It’s summer. Blanche and Fabien come out of the water. They walk together stepping over dozens of bodies, these clusters of the masses with their families … They end up having an informal meal, the equivalent of French merguez-fries … Fabien explains to Blanche and to us simultaneously why so many proletarians and immigrants were there: “They are not from here [from Cergy], they come from the ugly suburbs.” Indeed, Arabs had invaded part of the set of Rohmer’s new film … He also had to explain why they were not part of the story. A story is what remains when all else is gone: the furniture, the characters, everything. And in this story, there is no room for Arabs, merguez, or people.¹

The scene to which Skorecki refers was not improvised but written several months before shooting, a fact that is obvious all throughout the script of L’’Ami de mon amie. It must be reread:

Blanche and Fabien leave the swimming area. The park is crowded. Groups of Africans and Asians feast around campfires to the sound of their native music. Walking along the pond, Fabien and Blanche exchange their thoughts about what they see.