What is it about Éric Rohmer’s films that I like so much?  The drippy female characters?  The drippy male characters?  The long philosophical conversations, which unexpectedly bob up in such mundane domestic situations?  The drab 1970s interiors?  No, I think what I like about them is that they are so French.

So, it was on a trip to Paris that I decided to pay a personal homage to Rohmer by visiting his grave.  Rohmer died in 2010, and I knew that he was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Entering Montparnasse Cemetery, I picked up a handy, laminated map, which gave the––approximate––location of the most famous tombs.  Quickly, I discovered that Rohmer was buried pretty much in the middle of district 13 in Montparnasse Cemetery, just past the tomb of Saint-Saëns, and slightly to the left.

It was a slightly dreary afternoon, which somehow seemed appropriate to go looking for Éric. 

I tracked down district 13 without any bother.  The different sections of Montparnasse Cemetery are clearly signposted, and my native navigation served me well.  Once in district 13, though, I was on my own.  I traced my own route through a battlefield of anonymous graves, vaguely heading for a point that I judged to be roughly the centre of the plot.

A crowd of taphophiles gathered at one point gave me hope that I was on the right track.  I joined their throng, only to discover that they were visiting Saint-Saëns.  I should have known.  Saint-Saëns’ tomb was a big, old Tardis-like structure, clearly of earlier vintage but, unlike the Tardis, not bigger on the inside that it was on the outside, and so only able to accommodate one reverential tombstone-tourist at a time.

Still, I was not discouraged.  I knew that Éric was close by.  What was it that the laminated map had said?  Just past Saint-Saëns and slightly left.

I followed the directions, closely examining the names on the adjacent gravestones.  Rohmer?  Rohmer?  Rohmer?  I paced up one aisle of tombs; down another row of gravestones.  Could I find Éric?  Could I fuck.

I widened my search.  Perhaps the laminated sheet’s diagram was more approximate than I had appreciated.  Still no sign of Éric.  I began to speculate whether he had been reburied somewhere else.  Disinterred in the middle of the night and placed in some fresh location, perhaps somewhere more pertinent to his films; perhaps at that point in Saint-Jean-de-Luz where it is possible to see the green ray––Le Rayon Vert––at sunset?

No, that was being fanciful.  He must be here.  Except.  I couldn’t find him.  It was closing time at Montparnasse Cemetery.  I left, unsuccessful in my quest to find Éric.

It could almost have been a plot for a Rohmer film; me, cast in the role of drippy female lead; the dreary, small-scale setting; the sense of anti-climax; all that was missing was a long, philosophical conversation.  And perhaps a bitter-sweet ending?

It wasn’t until I got back home and did a bit of internet research that I discovered that Éric Rohmer had actually been buried under his real name of Maurice Schérer.

© Stephanie Snifter

Stephanie Snifter auditions for the role of non-speaking, background, walk-on part.