Haydée Politoff

A vacation in paradise becomes the last straw for a fed-up woman who ditches her cheating, abusive husband and takes up with a local fisherman.

A bombastic, womanizing art dealer and his painter friend go to a seventeenth-century villa on the Riviera for a relaxing summer getaway. But their idyll is disturbed by the presence of the bohemian Haydée, accused of being a “collector” of men. Eric Rohmer’s first color film, LA COLLECTIONNEUSE (“The Collector”) pushes the Moral Tales into new, darker realms. Yet it is also a grand showcase for the clever and delectably ironic battle-of-the-sexes repartee (in a witty script written by Rohmer and the three main actors) and luscious, effortless Néstor Almendros photography that would define the remainder of the series.

This touching, comedic feature consists of vignettes depicting various stages of relationships, all set in the backdrop of the Windy City.

After an incident on the road, a free-spirited motorcyclist finds refuge at a lakeside mansion occupied by three mysterious sisters with a secret.