Today from 18:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is La Collectioneuse (dir. Éric Rohmer, 1967), with an introduction by Marein van den Heuvel.

Éric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse (1967), the third instalment in his celebrated Six Moral Tales, explores the complexities of moral dilemmas within human desire, often revealing the subtle contradictions of our personal perceptions. The setting? An impressionist idyll near the sun-drenched French Riviera, where two men, Adrien and Daniel, retreat to escape the pressures of city life in pursuit of tranquillity and purposelessness. Their existential mission is disrupted by Haydée, a young woman whose carefree lifestyle and unapologetic independence challenge their ideas of moral integrity and desire through physical attraction. At its core, the film provides a podium for masculinity, examining how Adrien and Daniel try to hold their fragile self-images together through intellectual delusions. However, this stage is not made for applause, but to pull the rug underneath the brittle footwork of these two men and expose their façade of intellectualism as a toxic defence mechanism. The interplay between the three characters slowly transforms the veneer of a perfect summer escape into a love triangle fuelled by insecurities, jealousy and a whole lot of emotional tension. Not only does it question the notions of freedom, responsibility, and authenticity within desire, it also forces us to ask: are any of them truly free, or are they all ensnared by the very illusions they have created?