Suzanne’s Revenge

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Summary

Suzanne meets Guillaume by chance in a café, his overly confident demeanour and charm invites her immediately to dinner and their brief romance begins. What ensues is a string of humiliation, Suzanne is being taken advantage of by two men at the same time and she submits to their demands and wishes until she ultimately finds true love. But it’s not that simple.

She is not particularly beautiful or extravagant, but she is nice, even too nice. And she is more than willing to go out and spend time with Guillaume. In fact, she calls him every day, she endures his escapades with other girls, he humiliates her in front of people and she forgives him a minute later. It really is hopeless. She chases him all over Paris, she even chases his best friend. The boys, just for fun, decide to make her pay for all their night outs and dinners together until she goes broke and has to borrow money for food. Yet still, she remains friendly and kind to everyone. 

Rohmer’s psychological build up and final resolution

The story is told by Guillaume’s best friend, who can hardly stand her. He despises her lack of dignity, her remarkable endurance and willingness to suffer, her total nativity and desperation that makes her latch onto everyone she meets. He despises her appearance and her manners. Seeing him being polite to her isn’t exactly a pleasure to watch. We feel sorry for Suzanne we we don’t really like her. Nobody likes to identify and root for someone who isn’t even remotely standing up for themselves.

Still, Suzanne keeps up her good positive spirits and ultimately ends up with a fiancé who is truly in love with her. She hasn’t let the humiliation bother her. Our friend the raconteur reflects correctly in saying that she was never motivated by pride but more by good will and her ability to only look at the positive sides in people. The thing that made her look stupid and undignified at first, was actually her maturity. She didn’t need to engage in games and silly power plays. She doesn’t have to be petty to appear strong and respectable. The boys failed to see her for who she really is. She stayed true to herself and her principles. Her now newly find happiness exposes them as playing children, because they were preoccupied playing their little games while she focussed on what truly matters. She got real revenge in the end without even wanting to. Life itself took care of it and makes a mockery out of these two little thieves. That is the career of Suzanne

La Carrière de Suzanne, Éric Rohmer, 1963

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