The Bakery Girl Of Monceau (1962): Review

THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU (1962) 

(The Bakery Girl of Monceau, 2021)

This romantic-short movie lasts only 24 minutes and it is direct by Eric Rohmer. The film was the first of Rohmer’s Six Moral Stories, consisting of two short and four feature films. In the film, we question whether we choose what suits our interests or what is moral. While watching the movie, it is an interesting and questioning film for us to witness the hesitation about the young man’s choices. Before discussing the movie’s issue, let’s talk about what happened in the movie.

The movie takes place in Paris, at the crossroads of Villiers, and continues with the steps a university student who is studying at Law Faculty takes to appreciate the woman -whose name is Sylvie- he meets every day on the street and to meet her. Upon his friend’s encouragement, he meets her by hitting the woman in the street. When he says he wants to have a coffee with her, Sylvie says that she is busy now, but it may be another time and that they will probably encounter again because they are constantly on the street.

Thereupon, the man goes around the same area every day and hopes to encounter the woman again. One day passes, then two days and three days after which he cannot see the woman in the streets. These days, it is always the school’s lunch break so he is hungry and he starts to go to the patisserie on a deserted street where he can find something to eat. He buys the same cookie every day and keeps searching for women in the streets.

(The Bakery Girl of Monceau, 2021)

He then feels that the young girl working at the bakery is starting to like him, and he welcomes it, thinking that he wouldn’t normally like it, but that he could fill the void in Slyvie’s absence and even take revenge on her. He continues to go to the bakery every day and starts flirting with the girl. And in the end, it gets even more exaggerated, without even realizing what he’s doing because he’s doing it. Then, he convinces the girl to go to the movies and set a day.

When the meeting time approaches, the man encounters Sylvie while standing in front of the bakery. Sylvie explains to him that her ankle was sprained and she had been home for 3 weeks. Then they decide to have a meal together and the baker thinks the girl is a mistake and decides to go with Sylvie. After a while, he marries Sylvie.

When we look at the movie in its entirety, we see the indecision the man experiences in the movie is actually a very important dimension because we observe him constantly fluctuating between decisions. For example, when he meets the first baker girl and realizes that she likes him, we witness very rapid changes of decision between whether to respond well to the girl or not.         

 (MONCEAU’NUN PASTANECİ KIZI, 2020)

At first, he got angry thinking that he would never respond, but then he takes the opposite attitude and flirts with the girl. We also realize that even in the last scene where he encountered Sylvie, when he saw her, he understood that he wanted to be with her, but he still had indecision in the question he asked.

We see that he thinks that he can postpone the meeting with Sylvie to another day and go to the bakery girl to meet Sylvie another day. Then, realizing that this would be immoral, he actually chooses between the concepts of right and wrong. Even so, when he thinks about right and wrong choices, he adds: “Maybe I made it up at that time,”. In this sentence, we can actually comment that moral value is questionable and changeable. 

(THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU, n.d.)

Also, in my opinion, the striking point in the film is how it looks from the moral criterion that we are looking for something to distract ourselves when we cannot get the people we want or like. As we can see in the movie, the man could not wait even 3 weeks for a woman he knew he really wanted and fed his own flirtatious thoughts. What is questionable is that even if it seems morally bad, maybe it’s just a character trait that he’s impatient. 

Finally, I think that the fact that the man threw the garbage of the cookie he ate out onto the street in the film may be due to the director’s desire to make a reference to moral value. 

RESOURCE:

• Duncan, D. (2020, April 3). The Bakery Girl of Monceau | Films in Review | BYU Library. Films in Review. https://filmsinreview.lib.byu.edu/film_review/the-bakery-girl-of-monceau/
• Monceau’nun Pastaneci Kızı. (1963). MUBI. https://mubi.com/tr/films/the-bakery-girl-of-monceau
• The Bakery Girl of Monceau. (2021, March 14). [Illustration]. Letterboxd. https://letterboxd.com/film/the-bakery-girl-of-monceau/
• The Bakery Girl of Monceau. (2021, March 14). [Photograph]. Letterboxd. https://letterboxd.com/film/the-bakery-girl-of-monceau/
• MONCEAU’NUN PASTANECİ KIZI. (2020, November 5). [Photograph]. MUBI. https://mubi.com/tr/films/the-bakery-girl-of-monceau
• THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU. (n.d.). [Photograph]. Janus Films. https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1809