ERIC ROHMER

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBB.5. 

Original title:  Le Rayon Vert

Alternative title:  Summer

France, 1986.  Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication, P.T.T., Les Films du Losange, Ministères de la Culture de l’industrie et des P.T.T..  Scenario by Eric Rohmer, collaboration with Marie Rivière.  Cinematography by Sophie Maintigneux.  Produced by Margaret Menegoz.  Music by Jean-Louis Valéro.  Film Editing by Maria Luisa Garcia.  

Marie Rivière needs a vacation from Paris in the summer but, since it’s Eric Rohmer and life is always charmingly bittersweet, all she finds is loneliness.  Summering in Cherbourg with friends turns out to make her feel the solitude more, so she goes home, regroups and then heads for the Alps, where the sight of skiing families is so off-putting that she can barely stay a day before making her way to the Basque coast where she meets a delightful Swedish girl who is ready to party.  Riviere can never shake her melancholy wherever she goes, either in company or alone, searching for a happiness as elusive as the scientific phenomenon of the title that occurs at the magic hour of sunset.  It is perhaps a question of learning to accept life on its own terms or be happy in the moment, which despite all her speeches about her likes and habits and her confrontations with friends and possible lovers, is something she is still learning to do.  Delicate, sweet and beautifully photographed, this is Rohmer at his most continuously pensive, a film that goes round and round in circles without being interminable or aggravating (imagine a Henry Jaglom movie that isn’t terrible).  The dialogue is mostly improvised and the effect is noticeable: the sharp conversations about sex, passion and literature that you know from My Night At Maud’s or Claire’s Knee are now lengthy conversations about being a vegetarian, but the colourful personalities that populate the film and Rivieres’ own sweet presence make it lovely to behold.

Toronto International Film Festival:  1986

Venice Film Festival Award:  Golden Lion