THERE IS SOMETHING outré about summertime sadness. As foliage reaches its lushest form and the sun turns our skin dewy, nature summons its full potential to evoke enchantment. And yet, we often find ourselves standing obstinate in the face of God’s good favor.
Such is the case for Delphine in Éric Rohmer’s 1986 French drama, The Green Ray. Newly separated from her fiancé and ditched by a friend she was supposed to vacation with, Delphine (Marie Ri-vière) is suddenly alone in Paris as the city’s leisure class flees for more temperate summer climates. Failed attempts at companionship find her isolated or, worse, at the mercy of dining companions who take on the role of Job’s friends, psychoanalyzing her disposition and insisting she just needs to get out more. Despite all efforts, Delphine is disenchanted.
Rohmer depicts his story through wide, spacious shots. Cuts are sparing, rarely interrupting the rhythm of movement or speech, and the actors’ semi-improvised dialogue imbues the film with a documentary-like quality. Unlike Hollywood blockbusters, where swelling music and rapid-paced editing telegraph the emotions they want you to feel before the action even appears on screen, Rohmer’s camera is steady, seemingly inscrutable. It doesn’t shy away from tears, but it also refuses to exploit Delphine’s emotions, never tightening around her face, always observing from a respectable distance.
For viewers accustomed to the breakneck speed of popular films, increasingly optimized to profit off our shortening attention spans, The Green Ray may move at snail speed. Yet it is precisely this meandering clip from which the film draws its power — depicting the banality of our emotions, the malaise between moments that make up much of life.
It’s as if we’re inhabiting the lens of a kind and divine observer, set apart but never indifferent. The film frames its characters with care, even the ill-intentioned ones, casting them among bustling beaches and in quiet conversation with children. Perhaps the only handed-down judgment is that the camera itself keeps rolling, urging Delphine forward with the promise of impending revelation.
Summer in our own climate-warped reality has not felt quite as hallowed as it once did — the creeping heat now a harbinger for innumerable societal ailments, chipping away at our sense of self and stability. But the flowers bloom regardless of our disposition. The sun burns bright, and the noisy rivers shout their praise. And people, people extend kindness in their own way if we are willing to look for it. Such persistence demonstrates what writer Marilynne Robinson calls the “inscrutable intention” of our creator — a truth Rohmer echoes through his lens.
For all her despair, Delphine cannot escape life’s mundane beauties, nor the rapturous clarity that awaits her.
Curtis Yee is a reporter and critic living in Washington, D.C. He covers faith, society, and everything in between. Follow him on Twitter @curtisfyee.
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