The Aviator's Wife Reviews

• WOMEN ARE HARD TO UNDERSTAND

  
  By A3R2YB0WTTB0IJ on 2000-04-18
  THE AVIATOR'S WIFE is not a movie about the wife of an aviator nor about a love story in the air. In fact, we'll just admire that lucky woman on a photography during a few seconds in Eric Rohmer's first movie of the "comedies and proverbs" serie. But she really has, in the Rohmer's way of thinking, the main role of the movie. She gets pregnant, forcing her husband, a pilot, to make a choice between her and his 25 years old mistress, Anne, the main character of the movie, played by Marie Rivière who has been present now in 6 Eric Rohmer's movies.

  Christian's decision is an emotional shock for Anne who is loved by François, a night-shift employee. The action of THE AVIATOR'S WIFE, if one may call "action" the discussions between characters composing a Rohmer's movie, starts here. And lasts one day. At the end of the day, one character will be emotionally wounded for life. And it won't be the aviator's wife.

  If you love psychological movies with dialogs extremely well written and everyday life characters, then THE AVIATOR'S WIFE is definitively the movie for you. If not, unless you're a curious movie lover, skip it.

  Winstar Home Video, as always, hasn't cleaned at all the master, so the image quality is below-average but it's not so important after all in an Eric Rohmer's movie.

  A DVD that will make you feel smarter.
  
  

• Rohmer knows relationships

  
  By ABN5K7K1TM1QA on 2004-08-30
  In this bittersweet tale of disconnections and possibilities perhaps we have the essence of the art of Eric Rohmer. If you have only one Rohmer film to see, perhaps you ought to make it this one because it is so very, very French, so interestingly talkative (one of Rohmer's trademarks) and so very, very Rohmer.
  
  The Aviator's wife, incidentally does not appear except in a photograph, but that is all to the point. Everything is a bit off stage in this intriguing drama: love especially is a bit off stage. And yet how all the participants yearn.
  
  Marie Riviere stars as Anne who is in love with the aviator. We catch her just as she learns that he no longer wants her. He tells her that his wife is pregnant and so he must return to her. Meanwhile, she is being pestered by Francois (Philippe Marlaud) who is in love with her. However he is a little too young and "clinging." Truly she is not interested. It is a disconnection as far as she is concerned.
  
  The heart of the film occurs when Francois is following the aviator and the blond woman. Francois is obsessive and jealous. He follows because...it isn't clear and he really doesn't know why except that this is the man that Anne loves. As it happens while he is following them he runs into a pretty fifteen-year-old (Lucie, played fetchingly by Anne-Laure Meury) who imagines that he is following her. She turns it into a game, and again we have a disconnection. She is fun and cute and full of life, but he cannot really see her because he pines for Anne. Meanwhile Anne of course is pining for the aviator.
  
  Rohmer's intriguing little joke is about the aviator's wife. Who is she and what is she like? We can only imagine. And this is right. The woman imagines what the other woman is like, but never really knows unless she meets her.
  
  Maire Riviere is only passably pretty, but she has gorgeous limbs and beautiful skin and a hypnotic way about her, which Rohmer accentuates in the next to the last scene in her apartment with Francois. We follow the talk between the two, of disconnection and off center possibilities, of friends and lovers with whom things are tantalizingly not exactly right and yet not tragically wrong. As we follow this talk we see that Anne's heart is breaking or has broken--and all the while we see her skin as Francois does. She wants to be touched, but not by him. And then she allows him to touch her, but only in comforting gestures, redirecting his hands away from amorous intent. And then she goes out with a man in whom she really has no interest.
  
  Such is life, one might say. Rohmer certainly thinks so.
  
  One thing I love about Rohmer's films is that you cannot predict where they will go. Another thing is his incredible attention to authentic detail about how people talk and how they feel without cliche and without any compromise with reality--Rohmer's reality of course, which I find is very much like the reality that I have experienced.
  
  See this for Eric Rohmer whose entre into the world of cinema is substantial, original, and wonderfully evocative of what it is like to live in the modern world with an emphasis on personal relationships and love.
  
  

• The Woman Always Decides

  
  By ARA48345JZPZR on 2001-08-13
  This light yet perceptive film is about misunderstanding and missed opportunities. It is sweetly sad and humorous and knowing about the ways of men and women in love.

  It is not about the Aviator, nor his wife. In the opening the Aviator dumps his younger mistress because his wife is pregnant and the mistress in turn spurns another younger man she's been seeing. This young man, Francois, happens to see the Aviator with his "love" and later, by chance, takes the opportunity to follow him. While tailing the Aviator who is with another woman, Francois meets a younger woman who helps him and in turn draws out the reason for his following the couple and ultimately his upset and confusion over the situation.

  The humor and the irony in the movie is that both women, the mistress and the younger student, try to tell Francois the truth about women and love...but he will not hear it. Francois is so convinced of his own understanding of things (wrongly), that he cannot see the bright hope in front of him (the student) and the lost cause he is obsessing over (the mistress). Francois listens but doesn't hear.

  And in the end, he gets a lesson, but does he learn?

  A French movie all the way, for those that like them. 4-1/2 stars.
  
  

• A charming movie

  
  By A15A6436WU5EKA on 2004-03-08
  Very little actually happens in this movie yet I found it to be worth watching. This movie is my introduction to the films of Eric Rohmer, and I am sure that I will view as many of his movies as I can. Rohmer is a master.
  
  

• The Aviator's "Woman" . . .

  
  By A2WZYL0HNUR5XH on 2003-12-26
  La Femme De L'Aviateur, the French title of this movie, translates literally: "The Woman of the Airman." Woman is not necessarily wife, so the movie may be presumed to be about Anne, the pilot's girlfriend, who figures prominently, and thus we dispose of mis-impressions infecting half the reviews and doubtless countless viewers of this movie.

  But assuming the English title appropriate, and maybe it is, who is the aviator's wife? If you watch closely, you may come away wondering if the pilot is even married.

  We should also dispel a couple of other notions in the various reviews. It is a French "talkie." I happen to like them. It's not completely accurate to say it is about an obsession with an older woman. There is obvious consideration of the younger one at a certain point. It's certainly inaccurate to say the younger one represents the real possibility if one watches all the way to the end, past the aborted letter drop. And by the way, look at that guy closely. He is not a stranger.

  Anne does not agree with Lucie entirely that "women decide." It can't be said that these two women are educating Francois. It can't be said that he loses either of them, actually. Although, everyone who thinks they just must talk things through at the earliest opportunity would do well to see how he makes his life more difficult than it need be with this strategy.

  I think the movie really is about Anne, the pilot's girlfriend, whose picture appears on the cover. She is the one who is despondent and ready to give up on relationships because she finds no one's feelings true and faithful. And there is one further intriguing argument for this view.

  Eric Rohmer is noted for making cycles of movies... the comedies and proverbs, the four seasons, etc. In each cycle, the movies are not related per se, not like a series. But would it surprise anyone if this plotter of cycles hid a series among his cycles? If he did so blatantly, it would be uncharacteristic of the always enigmatic Rohmer. But what if he simply used the same actress, with a different character name, yet to represent the same character at different stages of life?

  Marie Riviere (Anne in this movie) appears to be just such a character. As Delphine in "Summer" does she not begin where Anne leaves off, disenchanted with all relationships? Finally healed by the magical Green Ray, she re-incarnates as Isabel in "Autumn's Tale," as the master matchmaker peddling her happiness to others, even training an apprentiss of sorts. If you can view these three movies and not come to this conclusion, do drop me a note and set me straight.

  Ah, but with the prospects ahead of a 15 year old detective who suggests murder, a magical green ray, and a master matchmaker, how can you resist all three?
  
  

• Great eg. of psychologically subjective storytelling
  By A73FVR5VRSO89 on 2004-01-02
  THE AVIATOR'S WIFE - Eric Rohmer / France 1981 (3.5 STARS)
  15 December 2003: It is always difficult to get overtly excited about an Eric Rohmer film or make any relative comparisons with conviction - Eric Rohmer's works are almost like Jazz music, delicate in their appeal and full of irony, yet not given to the charts. The Aviator's Wife, the 1st in Rohmer's series of Comedies & Proverbs is subtle like poetry by full of the irony of urban existence. Set in his hometown Paris (as most of his films are), this is a film about a young woman's insecurity about growing old lonely, and a young man's obsession with the slightly older woman. Artfully made with a color palette that seems to reflect the hues of the lives of the characters, the film is talkative yet reflective and insecure with a certain confidence.
  * Mise-en-scene: The character's motivations are developed with painstaking detail in an attempt to build characters that we may grow to either love or loath, but irrespective respect as real people. I was drawn to the young man's character in particular and to his singularly obsessive personality even though he was gentle and carefree at first sight.
  * The older woman was so typically stereo cast as idiosyncratic, intense and detached in a manner only the French can be. In the final scene one feel for the boy when he discovers that the young girl he meets on the bus has been feeding him all along, but before we have time to react, Rohmer makes a comic joke of the situation by spinning the movie into a loop so that we end up almost where we started, except that we've got a different man that the protagonist is trailing this time around.
  * The Cinematography, is bland, almost dogma like (way before the birth of Dogma- this is 1981), and there is almost no emphasis at technique beyond functionality. Yet sound is used to haunting effect, with ambient sound playing a potent character. Whether this was because of poor on location sound or whether this has been used as a stylistic element to enhance the narrative is however difficult to tell.
  
  
• Interesting study of relationships
  By A2ZS3MR6FC519W on 2004-05-14
  The most intriguing thing about this movie happened at the very end, giving insight into the main male character and piquing some interest... the movie is unfortunately not otherwise intriguing, and I am sorry to have to give it only three stars. Worth seeing if you like philosophical conversations about men and women and relationships, adultery and jealousy and happiness... there isn't a lot of substance otherwise, I'm afraid.
  
  
• Avoid it .. Please !!
  By A3PI78LW7ENR1C on 2002-10-02
  Horrible Movie !!
  You just see people chatting all the time !! No particular storey .. very boring movie .. It's good only for people with sleep disorder .. it will help you to sleep if you watch it for 10 minutes.
  
  
• Gift for an aviator
  By ANTXNAE3NSH4J on 2007-01-05
  This was actually purchased for my father who had it on his wish list.
  He is an old Air Force guy and wanted it since he believed that it was more about flying.
  In reality it's a story about relationships and human nature.
  His wife appreciated the movie more than he did so all was not lost.
  The lesson here is to read the reviews when possible to help make an informed decision.
  
  
• Fear of Intimacy
  By A3L0S6DUEX53ES on 2007-01-25
  Anne wants to prove to herself and the world that she's defective and unlovable by choosing men whom she knows are either unavailable (married pilot) or whom she can easily keep at bay(20 year old Francois). She says she's a "maneater" and poor Francois is so hungry for love that he denies reality to keep his fantasy alive. A nice coming of age movie and according to Enigma, "to learn to live and love - that's what we are here for."
  
  
  

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