Diane Baratier

Structured episodically, Rendezvous in Paris is Rohmer’s homage to the French capital and to the role of coincidence in everyday life. Moving gently across the city’s cafes, parks, and back streets, each of the three stories establishes a romantic tie with the urban space around it. Masterful.

The hopes and dreams of a socialist mayor inform this gently satirical comedy of errors from Éric Rohmer. A vividly precise satire of small-town bureaucracy—it’s reassuring to know Rohmer hates it as much as the rest of us!—that’s winningly funny, fearsomely political, and curiously personal.