In the 1998 Autumn Tale, by Eric Rohmer, a widow, Magali, might find love through the machinations of her best friend, the married Isabelle. But she won’t find it through the efforts of young Rosine, who doesn’t quite want to lose the affections of Etienne, the older man to whom Rosine is steering Magali. And we find she doesn’t want to be replaced by a lover just as young, which Magali is not, as Rosine.

Intelligently does Rohmer handle the subject of personality in human relationships, and this is another of his low-key, morally conservative pictures. Captivating characters are played by talented thespians. Isabelle is all charm, Rosine is all mature concern; Marie Riviere and Alexia Portal, respectively, act them palatably. Beatrice Romand (Magali), Alain Libolt, and Didier Sandra are flawless in their savvy. Autumn Tale is a good opus from Rohmer’s autumn.

(In French with English subtitles)

The Tsar of Russia, Nicholas Romanoff (Michael Jayston), and his wife Alexandra (Janet Suzman) seem to believe that God has done little for them, but they—the protagonists of Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)—have done little for the Russian peasants among sundry others. Nicholas concentrates on war, not dire poverty. Alexandra worries over her son with hemophilia, hoping for divine blessing through the strange Rasputin (Tom Baker), here plainly debauched. (But the boy does keep living.) The couple’s love for each other is contrasted with politically motivated hate, with rage at a poor leader, even though we are not shown much of Nicholas’s oppressive ways.

The director of Planet of the Apes and Patton, Franklin J. Schaffner, continued to prove his ambition and compelling direction, as in a soldiers-vs.-mob sequence, with this film. N&A is derived from a book by Robert Massie which I’ve never read, whereas the screenplay is by James Goldman and Edward Bond. It mostly succeeds, I think—the history is somewhat distorted—and turns Nicholas into a self-knowing tragic figure. Jayston enacts him well, and Suzman is solid, but how gratifying it is that the film offers more-familiar actors, including Laurence Olivier and John Wood, to shine in secondary roles.

I hate dementia, especially when it’s severe.

If a person were to tell me he or she intends to commit suicide because he suspects he has come down with dementia, I would reply, “That is your business. Do what you want. Dementia is terrible. I do not believe such a suicide is a sin.” Right, I do not, Christian though I am. I’d also say he needs to act pretty quickly lest the dementia, if it’s there, deprive his mind of the intention. If, to be sure, a cure for dementia is invented, undoubtedly I will look at the matter differently. I wish to always look at it compassionately.