The movie Hari Nef called “an endless stream of cinematic gold”
The breakthrough acting role of Hari Nef arrived with the Amazon TV series Transparent, which tells of a Los Angeles family called the Pfeffermans and how their lives are impacted by one of their parents revealing that they are a trans woman. Nef was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her efforts in the show.
From there, Nef has gone on to star in the Sam Levinson comedy thriller Assassination Nation alongside Odessa Young and Suki Waterhouse, as well as the thriller series You, the comedy 1Up, two Broadway plays, HBO’s The Idol and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Aside from acting, Nef is known for her journalism writing and modelling career.
So it’s fair to say that Nef has a lot in front of her when it comes to her acting career, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not a great fan of cinema, and when she named her ten favourite movies of all time in a feature with Criterion, she went into great detail and analysis, including of one that she called “an endless stream of cinematic gold”.
Nef said of Eric Rohmer’s 1970 romantic drama film Claire’s Knee: “What is it about horny rich people misbehaving in the countryside that is just an endless source of cinematic gold? I love the way this film, whether wittingly or unwittingly, portrays the abjection of the desire and romantic practice of a man who seemingly has it all figured out.”
The film tells of a soon-to-be-married man who developed a somewhat difficult romantic relationship with two teenage girls on the eve of his wedding day. It stars Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu and Beatrice Romand, marking the fifth film in Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales collection.
“He’s in his last summer of freedom before marrying himself off, and he’s misbehaving with these teenage girls—but you don’t for a second disbelieve the subjectivity of these girls,” Nef noted of Rohmer’s movie. “In fact, you end up getting sucked into their relationships with him. This film gets under the skin and into the nooks and crannies of what we do when our passions are high, and we’re very bored.”
“It’s a little pervy,” she added, “And we can question the age differences and the ethics of what’s going on sexually and romantically, but I think the film questions them as well, and we’re able to see strange desire from multiple angles. It just washes over you, and you understand it. It’s very French in that way.”
Check out the trailer for Claire’s Knee below.
