L’Arbre, le maire et la médiathèque

The person who starts off the project is a young socialist mayor who describes himself as ''a man with both his feet on the ground''. But soon he becomes big-headed and starts planning for a media library and a multi-storey car park. A beautiful tree stands on the chosen spot of the new construction and will have to be sacrificed. Suddenly the mayor is caught up in a whirlwind of assumptions and conditions for the building.

COMMENTARY
Eric Rohmer's latest movie interrupts his series of stories of the four seasons. Only a few of the films in his otherwise very consistent output - Six Moral Tales, comedies and proverbs - appears to be detached and stand out in this solitary way: The Marquise of 0, Perceval, Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle and now L'arbre, fe maire et la mediatheque. One presumes that the unique position of these films makes them important to Rohmer in one way or other.
Typically for Rohmer there is a lot of talking done. L'arbre, Ie maire et la mediatheque at first appears to be a cinematic comment on the French election debate. The mayor, who tries to boost his poor election result by planning for a grand building project within the cultural sector, is a real smooth talker. His political discourse is far removed from reality. But equally removed is also the tree-loving teacher, who wants
to put a stop to the building plans, played by the master of monologues within French film and theater, Fabrice Luchini.
But L'arbre, Ie maire et fa mediatheque deals with narrative choices more than political ones. References to different genres and narrative patterns are brought in, in an unexpected and playful manner: the theatrical monologue, the documentary and the musical. With Rohmer it doesn't come as a total suprise when he names the main character in the film - Chance.
The film is divided into seven episodes or - ''a game with seven chances''. Every part begins with the headline: ''And if not...''. The randomness of real coincidences is tied together with the film-narrator's play with ''if'' and ''but''. This appears to be something of a paradox - the conscious choices of the narrator depend on the unexpected. Somewhere Rohmer himself says (and this could stand as a motto for his films): ''Everything is temporary, except chance''.
Chance retold is no longer chance. But who knows? Maybe it will squeeze into the director's carefully calculated story and turn the context of his story on its head? Rohmer's project suggests this. And because of this his film teaches us something about film as a medium and about its conditions. To make films is to tell stories which could have been, if not ... ':'
Astrid Söderbergh Widding

Medverkande
Fabrice Luchini, Arielle Dombasle: Producent
Eric Rohmer: Manus
Eric Rohmer: Foto
Diane Baratier: Musik
Sebastien Erms: Talat språk
French