Summary
Delphine, a young secretary who lives in Paris, has her holiday plans upset when her fiancé
and then her friend dump her. Half-heartedly, she agrees to accompany another friend
to Cherbourg, but upset, she soon heads back to Paris. After an equally fruitless
trip to the Alps, she heads for Biarritz, where she overhears the tale of the Green Ray.
Lonely and unsure what to do, she tries to fill time, little thinking that the Green Ray
will soon change her life...
Review
Arguably the most visually poetic of Rohmer’s films in his series of Comédies
et Proverbes, Le Rayon vert is an engaging, wistful tale which easily evokes
the sense of yearning and isolation which marks many of Rohmer’s better films.
There are some strong similarities with the director’s more recent film, La Conte d’été
, although here the central character, Delphine (magnificently portrayed by Marie
Rivière, who improvised much of the dialogue) appears to be locked into a hopeless
situation where she has no choices to improve her situation, quite the opposite to La
Conte d’été . With its allusions to fortune reading and supernatural
influences, Le Rayon vert is much more about chance than individual choice.
As in all of Rohmer’s films, the cinematographic style takes precedence over the narrative,
although this film appears to be more directionless than most of his films. Whilst
this creates a sense of frustration at times, the mesmerising effect of Rohmer’s approach,
with its emphasis on capturing life as it really is, reinforced with strong natural sounds,
maintains the viewer’s attention. The film’s beautiful resolution, a harmonious
fusion of the spiritual and the corporeal, makes this both a memorable and immensely satisfying
work of cinema.
© James Travers 2001
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