A Rohmer film is a flavor that, once tasted, cannot be mistaken. Like the Japanese master Ozu, with whom he is sometimes compared, he is said to make the same film every time. Yet, also like Ozu, his films seem individual and fresh and never seem to repeat themselves; both directors focus on people rather than plots, and know that every person is a startling original while most plots are more or less the same.
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If you have not seen a Rohmer film and wonder where to start, the answer is--anywhere. You do not have to see them in order, not even the numbered tales. The title your video store has in stock is the place to begin. Rohmer is both prolific and consistently enchanting. He is at once a realist (his characters behave as people actually do) and a practitioner of subtle magic realism, in the way hidden patterns, coincidences, misunderstandings, happy chances and fateful accidents befall his characters. There is a kind of comfort in his films, a gentle lulling through the rhythms of everyday life, and he finds great beauty in ordinary people and locations.
What pervades Rohmer's work is a faith in love--or, if not love, then in the right people finding each other for the right reasons. There is sadness in his work but not gloom. His characters are too smart to be surprised by disappointments, and too interested in life to indulge in depression. His films succeed not because large truths are discovered, but because small truths will do. To attend his films is to be for a time in the company of people we would like to know, and then to realize that in various ways they are ourselves.
