Earlier this week I found out that the French director Eric Rohmer (Wikipedia) died at the age of 89. Ebert has an elegant in memoriam: additional commentary at Metafilter.
My first introduction to Rohmer’s movies was (I think)‘Conte d’été’ (1996): The other movies in the Tales of the Season series followed soon after. What makes Rohmer’s movies likable are the long dialogues and the surprising twists his characters have and take: for example, in ‘Conte d’été’, the main character evolves from a shy guy into a full-blown womanizer. Rohmer’s take on relationships in all his movies is quite on the mark: that is, in real life, falling in love and dealing with mixed emotions about loved ones is a lot more complex than what Hollywood movies portray to us. Simplicity sells a lot, obviously, and that was not the business Rohmer was in.
With the death of Rohmer, humans have indeed lost one of the greater humanists in the movie industry.