Each remarkable new film by legendary auteur director Eric Rohmer, now approaching his 90th birthday, breaks new cinematic ground, and The Romance of Astréa and Celadon is as exciting and innovative as any of Rohmer’s earlier work during the French New Wave. This time, his movie is based on Honoré d’Urfé’s 17th-century novel, a romance set among the charming young shepherds and shepardesses—as well as the nymphs, fairies, and druids that dwell among them on the Forez plain in 5th-century Gaul. Celadon’s parents do not approve of his love for Astrée, so he feigns a public affair with another young woman to protect their bond. When Astrée rejects him, believing his love for the other to be a betrayal, Celadon throws himself into the river to commit suicide. Astrée believes him dead, but the nymph Galathée and her maidens rescue Celadon from the water in yet another twist that makes this film’s circling and enchanting plot reminiscent of Shakespeare plays A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet. The Romance of Astrea and Celadon is an exquisite, enthralling, thoroughly cinematic exploration of love, freedom, and honor set in idyllic French pastures, where romance grows like roses on a vine.