Watch Pauline at the Beach For Free

Excellent but underrated film

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Eric Rohmer (the director of Pauline at the beach) is perhaps most well-known for his film-cycles. He would take one main theme and approach it in a cyclic (some might even say repetitive) way through multiple movies. In his life he made 3 cycles: The 6 Moral Tales (in the 60's and 70's), The Comedies and Proverbs (in the 80's) and The Tales of Four Seasons (in the 90's).Pauline at the Beach is part of the Comedies and Proverbs cycle (it's the third installment). As the title suggests the reoccurring motifs in the comedies and proverbs are a comedic approach and a unique proverb that each film is based on. Pauline at the beach is based on the proverb: "Qui trop parole il se mesfait" (a quote from Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval) which roughly translates to: "Whoever talks too much does himself a bad turn". The proverb is displayed as part of the opening credits.The plot is very simple: The 15 year old Pauline and her significantly older and just divorced cousin (Marion) go on summer vacation to a house near a beach that belongs to Marion and her brother. During their stay they meet 3 men: Pierre, a former friend of Marion who is (still) in love with her, Henri, a divorced ethnologist who praises freedom and independence, and Sylvain, a boy not much older than Pauline. The movie tracks Pauline's and Marion's vacation and their affairs with the men. The catalyst for all their meetings is the beach and the characters express themselves through elaborative speeches about their love life and how one should love. Often their actions contradict what they say.Rohmer counters the rather static talking by exhibiting layered backgrounds, beaches, gardens, clubs, streets, thus giving us a rich and detailed panorama; an atmosphere that feels just like holiday. He also focuses on body-language – subtle movements and quick glances give us a better idea of the characters and their relations. Especially Pauline gets her fair share of screen time. When Pauline, Marion, Henri and Pierre meet at Henri's on the first evening they have a lengthy talk about their love lives or rather their ideals concerning those. Pauline says nothing (until she is later asked to) and while all the other characters sit and talk the camera follows her when she walks over to the chimney (and later back again). In fact the movie seems to draw a line between Pauline and the adults – by framing and by the arrangement of dialogue. Pauline says relatively little. She seems to focus more on actions – when Henri kisses her feet to wake her she kicks him in the chest before saying anything.A central conflict in the film ensues when Henri meets with Louisette (a girl who sells candy at the beach) and sleeps with her when he is already romantically involved with Marion. Marion comes back while both are still in bed and Henri convinces Marion that Louisette was really together with Sylvain (who is also at Henri's house) although he is romantically involved with Pauline. Subsequently the gossiping arises, Marion tells Pierre and Pierre tells Pauline who is as a result disappointed by Sylvain and doesn't want to see him anymore; and although Pauline later learns the truth her affair with Sylvain is over, the talking did all the damage.A very defining aspect of Pauline at the Beach is if you look at it as a coming of age movie, a movie about the loss of a child's innocence, that Pauline doesn't actually lose her innocence – she never sleeps with Sylvain. However it could yet be described as a loss of innocence. She has now been exposed to the love-games of the adults, in fact without wanting it she has been a part of them. Thus she didn't lose her innocence by herself but her surroundings achieved that.The movie has a very closed feel to it: it starts with Pauline opening the fences in front of Marion's house and ends with her closing them. It singles out Pauline's vacation and makes it stand as something unique from the rest of her life – thus highlighting the importance of the events that happened but also trivializing them as something that's over, closed and locked away in her memory, and has little connection to the rest of her life.With Pauline at the Beach Rohmer paints an almost mystic painting of innocence and childish naivety. Through the contrast to the love-games of the adults he is able to single out Pauline who seems like someone stuck in the wrong painting. Amanda Langlet (Pauline) plays this role exhilaratingly well – she seems at the same time young and naïve, yet also wise and knowledgeable.Pauline at the Beach is a love letter to childhood. It stresses the importance of naivety, openness, shows us the vile entanglement that detaches us from the world around us and from ourselves. Rohmer achieves a fresh and vibrant tone; he treats each character with respect and grants them the room that they need to not become objects, subject of the story but subjects by themselves; he effortlessly emulates the relaxed and laid back atmosphere of a summer holiday – yet over this joyous ambiance loom the dangers that the future will bring – all the entanglements that the world will plant upon you.

Released in 1983, PAULINE AT THE BEACH is the third picture of Rohmer's "Comedies and Proverbs" series (6 in total, started with THE AVIATOR'S WIFE 1981, 8/10). The titular Pauline (Langlet) is attended by her elder cousin Marion (Dombasle), to stay in their family's vacation home on the north-western coast of France. They are two gorgeous beauties with gaping disparity, Pauline is a 15-year-old teenager, has a darker bob cut while Marion is a model-shaped blonde and just sets herself free from a failed marriage. On the beach, soon they attract the attention of Marion's old flame Pierre (Greggory) and a single father Henri (Atkine), their contrast is plain to see too, Pierre is a windsurfing coach, younger and more handsome, while Henri is a bit bald, ordinary-looking. Henri invites all to dinner and they discuss about love, Rohmer effortlessly compresses their different philosophy in the conversation, Pierre is the one who lives on hope, contests in a more traditional value of love and morality, demands devotion wholeheartedly; Henri, on the contrary, is a rootless hedonist, affectionate but leaves no strings attached. For Marion, she believes love at first sight, the spontaneous sex appeal can drive her up in flames, however it should also be reciprocal, and in her case, she is quite confident since she is the paradigm of a perfect lover for any heterosexual man. Finally, Pauline, who by far hasn't foray into the territory apart from some puppy love, surprisingly has her own stance on the subject matter - you must know people to love them, not judging the book by its page, her precociousness strikes as a stunner. That same night, Marion becomes the one who takes the move, not to the besotted Pierre, but the rather unappealing Henri, their chemistry blazes passionately, but Pierre doesn't intend to capitulate, his pursuit to Marion is as relentless as his repulsion to Henri. Pauline suggests Pierre is a more befitting match for Marion, and Marion proposes with the same thought, Pierre is the perfect choice for Pauline to spice up her adolescence. The upshot is the poor Pierre ends up in the friend zones of both. Pauline dates a local boy Sylvain (de la Brosse) around her age, and Henri hooks up with Louisette (Rosette), a snack-peddler on the beach, when Marion and Pauline are out visiting Mont Saint-Michel. He also fabricates a perfect lie to cover the story when Marion returns unexpectedly, leaving Sylvain as the fall guy. Anyhow in Rohmer's cinema world, there is no place for melodrama, the lie will unravel in its due course, but there is no undoing for Henri, he is the one can take flight at any moment, for him, it is a white lie with the best intention without hurting Marion's feeling (although it does put Pauline and Sylvian's relationship under the strain). Atkine deftly leavens his part with a full-on composure, downplays his libido-driven lust and convincingly gives the lecture to Pauline about how he really feels for Marion. Greggory manages to balance Pierre's impeachable standing and behavior with his pesky bluntness to the extent where Rohmer asks for, one could rationally concur with his standpoints, yet, in the end of the day, he slips to be the most unlikeable character in the story, while the most admirable one is Rosette's Louisette, sky is the limit for her. Dombasle is a bombshell in her pinnacle, but not an insipid one, she generously presents the whole spectrum of Marion's desire, fantasy and despondency. Langlet varnishes Pauline with her primary color, at first being upstaged by others, slowly her learning-curve of adulthood becomes the cornerstone of the film, at the final scene, which works magnificently in concert with the opening one, Marion might be the same, Pauline definitely acquire some nitty-gritty from her short stay, about both men and women, but can she excel in her upcoming adulthood? There is a bigger picture left unsaid, we are all indebted to Rohmer's mastery and grateful to the treasure trove he bequeathed to us, which is worth discovering and revisiting from time to time.

In the end of the summer vacation, the fifteen year old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) travel with her older divorced cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle) to her seaside house in Granville. While on the beach, Marion meets her old friend Pierre (Pascal Greggory), who has a crush on her, and his new acquaintance Henri (Féodor Atkine), who lives in Oceania and is spending vacation with his young daughter in the resort. In the night, they go to a casino and Marion has one night stand with Henri, feeling a great passion for him. However, Henri is a wolf and has no interest in having any commitment with Marion. Meanwhile Pauline listens and observes the behavior of the older people while she has a little but disappointing romance with a boy of her own age.A friend of mine is a great fan of Eric Rohmer and this is the first movie of this director that I watch; however I am disappointed with "Pauline à la Plage", maybe because of my greatest expectations with his work. This low budget movie has a simple, silly and shallow story; reasonable acting and empty lines; common screenplay without any originality and very poor camera and cinematography. I have not found anything special in this flick, and even the body of Arielle Dombasle is beautiful but not sexy. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Pauline na Praia" ("Pauline at the Beach")

I'm going through a phase of catching up with Rohmer films I've missed, and this one was so good it's tempted me to post a comment again, something I haven't got round to for a while. It is perfect, typical Rohmer: location filming, very wordy script, indecisive characters...all in the service of Rohmer's film theory, that in cinema you use dialogue to tell (as in literature) and the camera to show. The interest and conflict come from the (inevitable?) mismatch between the two. Here, each of the characters needs desperately to believe that what they saw was the truth of the situation. At the end, Marion has learnt enough to know that her perception may be false. But she'll go on believing it anyway, because that is necessary to her sense of self. An excellent treatise on the way in which our perceptions are as important as the 'truth' of any situation. The colours in the film deliberately reference Matisse, and there is something of his style too: by showing the flat surface of the canvas, you both open up its beauty and reveal it to be a construction rather than a truth. The use of glimpses through windows adds a Hitchcockian dimension too. Another one to savour.