Le Rayon Vert – Eric Rohmer (1986)
The advent of the Parisian Summer greets us with those perennial Parisian holiday issues – to the mountains or the beach? Or another country? Perhaps Ireland. Delphine was going to Greece but when her friend bails on her, she must find alternative plans.
Delphine is insufferable. She has been alone for two years since breaking up with her boyfriend and it is taking a toll. Inertia reigns and insecurities are allowed to prosper. Anyway, without any desire, yet with no excuse, she agrees to go to Cherbourg with a group of couples. The fit predictably doesn’t work, an unease amplified by her haranguing the table about eating meat during lunch.
Next stop is her ex’s vacant place in the mountains but that only lasts a couple of hours before she returns to Paris. This is followed by a sortie to Biarritz where the balance suits Delphine better and Rohmer considers her more empathetically. Moments of levity come at the right times, because she isn’t doing anything and we can only have that for so long. However, ultimately, it ends poorly.
Is she being serious when she says she has nothing to offer? Or is it her typical self-deprecating humour? Ironically, if she is being sarcastic it is that very humour that is her most redeeming quality - certainly in a social sense. The truth is that while she may listen, she doesn’t hear a thing.
Le Rayon Vert tests the boundary of creating a character so repulsive that you don’t care about the story. Fortunately, it wins: this is a great story. It really understands loneliness, and it is particularly shrewd regarding identity. There are square pegs and round holes but if the green ray of a setting sun can diffract around a globe, then we might just be OK.
7.5/10
Updated:
Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray/Summer)
My Night at Maud's
A Summer's Tale