Conte d'automne (1998) ***

Directed by Eric Rohmer. With Marie Riviere, Beatrice Romand and Alain Libolt. A middle-aged woman becomes the victim of the matchmaking efforts by her friends. Set in the Rhone valley in southern France, it's the final installement in Rohmer's celebrated "Tales of Four Seasons" cycle. As usual, it's a delicious, irony-rich dialogue that carries the day. Subtle, perceptive and attentive to the slightest detail, Rohmer is to cinema what Monet is to painting - an impressionist master forever reworking the same themes and giving them slightly different shades of meaning.