The Green Ray (1986)

Thanks for the memories!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I already liked this film a lot having owned it on DVD as part of a great value Rohmer box set. However when the opportunity came up to see it at the cinema today I couldn't pass it up. This film and others by the same director have influenced other films which I like a lot (e.g. Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset) in that there is little action but lots of conversation, some interesting, some banal. I identified strongly with the quiet introvert lead character Delphine, who was misunderstood by her friends and given all sorts of advice on finding a partner which wouldn't be suitable for her at all. The performance by Marie Riviere was wonderful and she contributed to the dialogue too (she has a credit shared). Lots of times she had subtle facial expressions going on which spoke volumes and it made me wish I spoke French as when I kept looking to the subtitles I knew in the time I was reading them I was missing some of those. Even the silences (or just bouts of tears) spoke volumes. I won't reveal too much of the plot except to say it has a hopeful feeling towards the end and the whole thing appealed very much to the romantic in me.

The green ray in the title of this French movie (also called green flash) refers to an optical phenomenon in which you can sometimes see, under certain hard to attain conditions, a green light coming from the horizon right after sunset (or right before sunrise). The famous French novelist Jules Verne wrote about this natural occurrence in a book called "The Green Ray" which is briefly referred to in the movie.The film itself is about Delphine (played by Marie Riviere, who has been in several movies of director Eric Rohmer), who works as a secretary in a Paris office. She is a slender, tallish, moderately attractive black haired woman in perhaps her late twenties and has a "difficult" personality. She has recently broken up with her boyfriend, right before the summer holidays, and the prospect of lonely vacations much saddens her (though to some in the audience it might not make the most compelling of tragic situations). So the movie is about her talking with friends about her predicament until she decides to go alone, meeting on the road a few people (including a Swedish woman who she first meets topless at a beach and who is meant to represent sexually liberal attitudes). I'm not going to spoil it for you whether Delphine will find a romantic partner or not during her travels, but the ray of the title does make an appearance.The movie is from 1986 and since it was shot on the street, you can see people with what are now "period" clothes. If you were, like me, a child in the 1980s, you will probably like this.Talky, as expected from the director, but the dialogues are not as pretentious as in other of his movies. Not the best of Rohmer, but very watchable. One problem with the plot is that it is not terribly original, since most of us have seen too many movies about single women around 30 years of age feeling lonely.

Delphine is lovelorn. She wants a romantic relationship, but finds it hard to socialise or adhere to the conventions of dating. During the summer, she has nobody to vacation with but doesn't like travelling by herself. Is she destined to be alone ?This lovely, thought-provoking little film, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1986, is typical of Rohmer's gentle but insightful drama. Delphine has an age-old problem; she's mature enough to be looking for something more meaningful than sex and partying, but young enough to be self-centred and dismissive of social expectations. When her friends encourage her to loosen up and flirt they just don't get that she wouldn't want to be with anyone she might meet using that strategy. Her frustration is beautifully played by Riviere, and is frequently uncomfortable to watch as she struggles to reconcile her longing with her prickliness and self-doubt. The film is full of richly observed little vignettes, like the dinner-table discussion of vegetarianism, or the central metaphor of the green flash (which is a real meteorological phenomena, as well as an 1886 novel by Jules Verne), and the locations in the Normandy port of Cherbourg and Basque seaside town of Biarritz are terrific. If you are unfamiliar with this gifted and prolific director's work (he made about thirty movies over forty years) this is a good introduction to his unpretentious but absorbing low-key dramas, as is his 1971 classic Le Genou De Claire. I don't think I've ever come across a filmmaker as honest as he is. This was the fifth in his series of six Comédies Et Proverbes works, coming between Les Nuits De La Pleine Lune and L'Ami De Mon Amie. English title - The Green Ray.

Eric Rohmer has fashioned a film that perfectly mirrors the main character Delphine. It is by turns annoying, insightful and moving. With improvised dialogue the film has a more naturalistic feel than some of Rohmers other work, he also shows more interest in nature than usual making this one of his more interesting films to look at. Delphine, brilliantly played by Marie Riviere, is lonely (and seemingly pining for her ex-fiancé) and her attempts at a vacation form the body of the film. She travels to various places but not until the end does she find something like happiness. She can be very maddening - ignoring people (presumably because they are "not the right sort" - just plain rude to my mind), and lecturing a family on her vegetarianism as they tuck into lamb chops. She does though seem a very real person, and many viewers will find themselves rooting for her anyway - she is like many people we know in being full of faults but you still like them anyway. The greatest weakness of the film is that for all her self-absorption Rohmer does not really provide any evidence of self-insight or change (a serious fault in that drama is all about characters changing), Delphine talks a lot about her problems but her explanations often struck me as trite. An oddity among his output, this should be seen by any Rohmer fan, I would not recommend it as an introduction though. (The mark of 6 may seem low by inflated IMDb standards but it is relative to Rohmers other films).