My Night at Maud’s

My Night at Maud’s, a film by Eric Rohmer released in 1969, is interesting by virtue alone of the existential, intellectual, and enticing nature of the conversation concerning Marxism, religion, and sex between our Catholic boy protagonist Jean-Louis and the sophisticated and seductive woman, Maud, whom he has met for the first time. The film on the whole works to challenge, piece by piece, every facet of Jean-Louis’ religious and sexual ideals by posing Maud, the deft intellectual seductress, against these ideals. It is quite engaging in its picture of the night the two share, throwing philosophies and ideas back and forth at each other, tempting each other, and eventually going to bed together, though not sleeping together, which proves to be against what both of the characters actually desired. Jean-Louis decides not to because he is love with another woman, and because he has written off random sexual flings, but eventually, after he had rejected her, attempts to give in to his desire, but to no avail, for now Maud has written him off. The film is intellectually engaging and very legitimate in its creation and portrayal of its characters, and I very much enjoyed it.