Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59963 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-06-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Louise (Pascale Ogier), a restless designer bored with sleepy suburban life outside of Paris, lives with her lover, Remy (Tcheky Karyo), a stable architect happy with a calm home life and a long-term relationship. The independent Louise decides to move back into her old Paris apartment during the week, losing herself in the bustle of dinner parties and nightclubs and single men, while spending her weekends back with Remy. Louise becomes briefly entangled with another man, a spontaneous musician who is the opposite of Remy, but in a neat twist on the formula, Remy himself drifts to another--at the suggestion of Louise herself. The fourth of Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs is the most ironic and, in many ways, the most judgmental of his films. Willowy Ogier's kittenish sexuality and zest for life are wrapped in a self-absorbed determination that borders on indifference, but for the most part this is another wryly witty look at modern love from the master of the sophisticated romantic comedy. Fabrice Luchini plays Louise's best friend and conniving confidante, Octave, and Laszlo Szabo appears as a café patron who pontificates on the magical effects of the full moon. Ogier, who died shortly after the film's release, designed many of the handsome sets. Rohmer followed this with perhaps his most generous character study, the modestly magical romantic adventure Summer. --Sean Axmaker

From the Back Cover
The fourth of Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series, Full Moon in Paris is an insightful comedy dealing with human relationships. Pascale Ogier stars as Louse, a young woman who moves away from her devoted lover to rent a small apartment in Paris. Convinced that she isn't ready to settle down, Louise embarks on a series of misguided affairs, only to discover that you don't know what you have until it's gone.

Customer Reviews

Essential French cinema: Rohmer's 'Les Nuits de la pleine lune.'
Éric Rohmer (1920) first challenged traditional Hollywood cinema with his French New Wave cycle of films, "Six Moral Tales," which he completed in 1972 before commencing another six-film cycle, "Comedies and Proverbs," each based on a different proverb.

Based on the proverb, "he who has two women loses his soul, he who has two houses loses his mind," Full Moon In Paris (Les Nuits de la pleine lune) (1984) is the fourth in Rohmer's insightful "Comedies & Proverbs" film series. It tells the story of Louise (Pascale Ogier), a restless interior decorator bored with her suburban life outside of Paris, and her architect lover, Remi (Tcheky Karyo), who is content with their relationship just as it is in Marne-la-Vallée. Not ready to give up her single life, Louise rents an apartment in Paris, where she intends to fully enjoy the Parisian nightclub scene. After being seduced by another man, Louise realizes she loves Remi more than she thought. Meanwhile, Remi has met another woman. Rich in relationship dialogue, like many of Rohmer's films, Full Moon in Paris reveals how the course of love never did run smooth, particularly for his young Parisian characters. Hopefully Criterion will remaster Rohmer's "Comedies and Proverbs" series, and then offer it as a boxed collection similar its "Six Moral Tales" boxed set.

G. Merritt

You must be joking!
Thanks to everyone who reviewed this with their eyes closed....I am French.I look forward to seeing movies from my homeland.....I have never been so embarrassed.

If not for the plot, the bad 80s hair and dancing, and the conclusion.Utter garbage.I paid $3.87, somebody owes me $3.86....

And the sad thing is, because of all those recommendations I bought another one which hasn't arrived yet.I am scared.

Quelle honte pour le cinema Francais!
Bad camera work, very bad acting, boring dialog....you name it!
I suggest other movies such as Le bossu, la fille sur le pont, lhomme du train, et le pere noel est une ordure1

Full Moon, Full Heart
I am so heartened to see this film getting solid reviews on Amazon, because it is truly a gem. It doesn't seem to be recognized as one of the canonical Rohmer films -- like "Pauline à la plage," "Le genou de Claire," "La femme de l'aviateur" -- but for his devotees, Rohmer's work is all of a piece. For those not sold on the Rohmer name alone, this is a twisty-turvy, drole, character- and dialog-driven French comedy-romance. Vincent Canby did write a glowing review that can be accessed from the New York Times online archives of film reviews. He likens Rohmer to the great miniaturists in art -- but there is in his movies a whiff, fresh and modern but quite discernable, of Fragonard and Boucher, those masters of lighthearted French romantic diversion.

The downsides are purely the packaging. As usual, Fox Lorber's editions are dreadful: lackluster prints, no widescreen, no options to leave subtitles off or have them in French, no special features.

But the beauty of the film itself makes all this of no consequence. In broad outline, this is a typical Rohmer tale of a pretty young woman and her willful, mildly wanton, and winsome path of self-determination -- her frustrations and foibles. Rohmer's preoccupations annoy some, but for me they are heartfelt, absorbing, and true. In fact, the truth lies in the very self-deception that he allows his characters to slip in and out of. For those who like the action in their films to be internal, for those who see action even in inaction, Rohmer's seemingly motion-less pictures can be full of excitement.

In this case, the heroine is less annoying than some of Rohmer's women -- not that his annoying ones aren't likable or make for unpleasant films, to be sure! Louise is played by the lovely Pascale Ogier. The intense Tcheky Karyo plays her solid, if stolid, boyfriend Remi. Louise is a somewhat birdlike creature in the French manner -- she enjoys nesting, creating and inhabiting her space (or spaces), but she is restless and wants to spread her wings. She is elegant but fragile-looking, and you can almost hear her little heart beating beneath her lissome frame draped in cowls and pullovers. Her restlessness may be "just a phase" -- the title (the French title, "Les nuits de la pleine lune" translates as "Nights of the Full Moon") even suggests as much. But if so, Rohmer never discounts or patronizes the vividness of what she is going through. Louise may be flighty, but her predicament -- self-inflicted though it may be -- is real. How she handles it may seem muddled, but it has its own authenticity, its own integrity. While watching the film, one doesn't feel a great investment in her fate -- not because you don't care, but because the journey itself is quite real, and engaging purely on its own terms: the film withholds any breath of judgment and you feel confident that it will wind up where it needs to.

As with many other Rohmer films in this series (notably the various summer locales of "Le rayon vert," "L'ami de mon amie" and "Pauline à la plage"), place is a significant player in the action. His sense of how environments affect people's lives and choices -- and even bring about decisive moments -- is one of the Rohmerian touches of truth. Louise's choice seems as much the choice of two places -- vibrant Paris (where she keeps a cozy pied-à-terre, and where even at her most befuddled she finds late-night consolation and philosophy from a fellow insomniac and artist at a diner) and the quiet satellite city (of which Remi is one of the designers), its remoteness accentuated by occasional shots of Louise at a distance, walking the long road from the train terminal.

One is struck with the balance, humor, and sexual fluidity of this movie. Remi the homebody isn't the only nester -- Louise's nesting just takes other forms. Remi indulges the occasional spate of immaturity just like Louise, and moments of self-dramatization. And Louise shows composure and certitude at key intervals. It's all within the bounds of the characters, as is the humor, which offers the tenderest touches of insight. More humor is embodied by Fabrice Luchini, playing Louise's best friend, Octave. He is as birdlike as she is, a self-absorbed writer gathering snippets of information and impressions to feather his literary nest. He is also forever putting the make on Louise, which she calmly and never coyly declines at every instance. It's obvious she is his friend out of affection and kindred spirits, not at all out of the ego-rush, and that's why at one moment she can push him away after another pass and in the next moment take his hand and head out the door to a party. It's this kind of wry, tender, non-judgmental nuance that you seldom see in the relationships between men and women in American movies.

Give this movie a watch, you'll find yourself smiling -- whether indulgently, knowingly, or sympathetically!