The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

Review

If his recent announcements are to be believed, Eric Rohmer’s latest film may be his last. It’s sad to contemplate the retirement of a director who, for a generation of American filmgoers enraptured by his “Moral Tales” cycle, defined the French sensibility toward modern love. The Romance of Astrea and Celadon is also a love story, but one based on (bless Rohmer’s octogenarian heart) a seventeenth-century novel by Honoré d’Urfé. Set among frolicking shepherds in fifth-century Gaul, it tells the tale of two amours who are riven through a minor misunderstanding and whose circuitous path to reunion includes a false death, some humorous cross-dressing, and, as is Rohmer’s wont, a thorough philosophical airing of the nature of fidelity. Like Haydn, Rohmer has not succumbed to pessimism or despair in his late work, and here he is as light of touch and witty as ever. — Tayt Harlin