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.
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.