August is the perfect time for an Éric Rohmer film. They unfold in relaxed settings—lakeside resorts, borrowed, barely furnished country houses, beach towns. The characters are at leisure and, since they’re French, they tend to discuss their theories of love and morality. I’ve always loved La Collectioneuse, from 1967, even though some of the speeches on relationships are outdated (or worse). In the film, Rodolphe lends two friends a villa near St. Tropez only to discover that his love interest is staying there. At various points the characters seduce or alienate one another (or both).

I’ve aways loved the style of Arnaud. Sometimes he’s impossibly formal in a suit, and sometimes he’s barely dressed, yet he always looks like himself. Yet he’s ready to dispatch his thoughts on marriage with the utmost confidence (even though his own is on the rocks). Rohmer loves to reveal the state of unknowingness of his male leads (think of the end of Claire’s Knee). They often act in direct opposition to their declared principles. Adrien has contradictions, even in the way he dresses, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

SARTORIAL CINEMA is a periodic look at the best-dressed films.