One can’t think of nothing, states the maxim at the start of
Eric Rohmer’s The Aviator’s Wife, and the movie encourages one to view the
assertion with some regret, to muse that if one could transcend one’s daily
clutter of interactions and obligations and desires, and all the stresses and
anxieties that accompany them, one might attain something fuller and purer, in
which thinking of nothing would constitute the ultimate fulfilment. As it is though
(and in contrast to a pivotal earlier work like My Night at Maud’s) the
characters in The Aviator’s Wife never approach such thoughts, being
consumed entirely by that daily bric-a-brac, by the false narratives built upon
it and their vast consumption of time and internal space (the title artfully
sums up this state, referring to a person who’s not in the film and whom a
couple of key characters fail to correctly identify). Almost as hard as thinking
of nothing, perhaps, is looking while seeing nothing, and the film is driven by
several incidents of one character observing another (a young man seeing his sort-of-girlfriend
emerge from her building after apparently spending the night with her supposed
ex, then later observing that same man with another woman) and then becoming
wrapped up the implications of what was witnessed – this can be a liberation of
sorts, as illustrated by the film’s lightest section, an extended interaction
in the park between two people who’ve just met, but (as the film also illustrates
in its final moments) not likely a lasting one. As always in Rohmer’s films, the
film is marked by great emotional delicacy and versatility, the tone and dynamic
of conversations often turning on a dime: there’s an aspirational quality to
it, in how even the frustrations and disappointments are more eloquently
embodied, and by more beautiful people, than normal life generally allows, but never
to an extent that constitutes mere fantasy or denial of possibility.
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