Why Not by Leah Puyat: Rodin, Romance and the Movies

In Paris, reality and romance collide constantly. One place where this is specifically true is the Rodin Museum. As I wandered through the garden, and marveled at the incredible way that Rodin was able to infuse inanimate metal with sinewy musculature and deeply human emotions, part of me also thinks: But was it really his mistress and equally talented (if not more so) mistress Camille Claudel who was the master behind these masterpieces? Of course, I have these thoughts because I repeatedly watched Camille Claudel, the movie, of the doomed tragic romance between fragile and sensitive Camille and the manipulative and yet magnetic Auguste Rodin. (But there is some poetic justice as there is a room in the museum devoted to Claudel's work.)

In a more recent movie, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, there are two scenes shot in the museum's garden, both with model turned singer turned First Lady of France Carla Bruni Sarkozy in a charming cameo turn as a tour guide and expert on Rodin's life, artistic and romantic.

The good thing about the Rodin Museum is that you don't even have to be an art lover or a movie buff to enjoy it. Entrance to the garden, where the more famous sculptures are displayed in a classically landscaped French formal style, is free, and the juxtaposition of the sensual, dynamic human forms and the carefully clipped greenery is a perfect representation of the two sides of the French character, of the pursuit of passion and logic in equal measure.

Getting inside Rodin Museum. Soooo excited!

Angelette Calero, me & Xandra Ramos-Padilla (who we just bumped into on the way in)

I think...

It's the Thinker! With me thinking!

I think.

And Angelette is thinking what I'm thinking.

It's their version of chocolate hills at the Rose Garden (sounds like a song from the 80's... "I beg your pardon, I never promise you a rose garden..." Baka dito na-compose ang song na 'yan).