ROHMER'S LATEST A TALE OF TWO MOVIES: ONE BORING, ONE BOLD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THOSE WHO HAVE found French New Wave eminence Eric Rohmer's static, talky cinema style tedious have a favorite rap on the guy: His movies are like watching paint dry.

On the other hand, fans appreciate the now-82-year-old auteur's unparalleled ability to combine acute character inquiry, intellectual stimulation and delightful romantic comedy, and deliver it all in a pleasingly performed, natural manner of apparent effortlessness.

With his latest picture, though, a rare historical piece called ``The Lady and the Duke,'' Rohmer appears to be trying for something like a version of that drying enamel effect his critics charge, although in an aesthetically intriguing manner that's as much his own as it is a creative use of modern digital technology.

Interesting and sometimes beautiful as Rohmer's approach is, however, it exerts a stultifying effect on the finished product. ``The Lady and the Duke'' represents an exciting new direction for one of the world's great directors, but also unintended self-parody in almost equal measure.

The film is based on journals Scottish gentlewoman Grace Elliott kept, detailing her experiences in and observations of France, her adopted country, during the Revolution. Rohmer shot it on digital Beta; 37 ``exteriors'' that are actually background paintings by Jean-Baptiste Marot of streets, bridges, squares and buildings were electronically keyed-in. In this way Rohmer approximates the look of Paris and its environs some 210 years ago. But the backdrops also look very much like the dappled creations that they are, and do nothing to fool the eye into believing that the people moving in front of them are in any real environment that ever existed.

The politics- and history-heavy dialogue spoken by the principals can hinder engagement, too, although after awhile veteran viewers will realize that they're listening to classic Rohmer debate, just absent the mating component. There is romance though, of a tragically blind nature: the optimistic faith in both revolutionary ideals and human loyalty that the Reign of Terror virtually and literally decapitated.

Lucy Russell plays the spunky Elliott, a devoted royalist whose British citizenship is the only thing that keeps her alive as mobs increasingly rule the streets and the courts. Her great friend and former lover, the Duke of Orleans (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), is one of the revolution's most devoted supporters, despite being closely related to the king (whom he despises) and, although he has no idea of it before fate overtakes him, the father of one of the eventual restoration's monarchs.

Over a period of years, Elliott and the Duke meet in plushly appointed sitting rooms to discuss their political differences, mutual affection and occasional disappointment in one another's actions. They conspire to help a sworn enemy escape and try to help one another, to their own increasing peril, survive the ever-deteriorating civil situation.

Although dialogue, as ever with Rohmer, dominates the film, something like action scenes occur whenever Elliott attempts to move between Paris and her suburban estate. We even see people being chased and killed, something of a departure for this director.

Ultimately, words fail their speakers. This, too, is typical of the filmmaker, no matter how differently ``The Lady and the Duke'' employs them from the main body of his work. If all of this makes Rohmer's latest a more difficult sit than even his demanding norm, it's also worth the extra effort to see an artist, still committed to growth in his ninth decade, change while remaining true to his principles with a film whose very subject is, quite pointedly, about the peril of such efforts.

THE LADY AND THE DUKE - Three stars

(Rated PG-13: violence)

Starring: Lucy Russell, Jean-Claude Dreyfus.

Director: Eric Rohmer.

Running time: 2 hr. 9 min.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.; University 6, Irvine.

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Lucy Russell, left, stars as a royalist who tries to survive in revolutionary France in ``The Lady and the Duke.''