the green ray (le rayon vert) 1986 region free dvd5 french bcbc

the green ray (le rayon vert) 1986 region free dvd5 french bcbc

(The Green Ray was released with the title Summer in North America)



In 1981 Eric Rohmer began a new series of six films he called Comedies and Proverbs, each starting with a famous saying ("It is impossible to think about nothing." "He who talks too much will hurt himself." and so on). In each of the films one of the main characters is driven by an ideal (usually of a potential lover, but not always) and has that ideal frustrated. Like every Rohmer movie, the films are dominated by conversation and are beautifully shot in a style that rarely calls attention to itself. The six films in this series are as follows: 01 The Aviator's Wife (1981), 02 A Good Marriage (1982), 03 Pauline at the Beach (1983), 04 Full Moon in Paris (1984), 05 The Green Ray (1986), 06 My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (1987).



The Green Ray (French: Le Rayon vert) is a 1986 film by Éric Rohmer. It was released as Summer in North America. The film stars Marie Rivière, Rosette, Béatrice Romand, Carita and Vincent Gauthier. It is named for the novel of the same name by Jules Verne. It was shot in France on 16mm film and much of the dialogue is improvised.

The film won the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1986 Venice Film Festival.

Contains movie and Optional English Subtitles. No menus or extras. Regular DVD quality. Thank you.















Synopsis

Delphine's traveling companion cancels two weeks before her holiday, so Delphine, a Parisian secretary, is at loose ends. She doesn't want to travel by herself, but has no boyfriend and seems unable to meet new people. A friend takes her to Cherbourg; after a few days there, the weepy and self-pitying Delphine goes back to Paris. She tries the Alps, but returns the same day. Next, it's the beach: once there, she chats with an outgoing Swede, a party girl, and a friendship seems to bud; then, suddenly, Delphine bolts, heading back to Paris. As she waits at the Biarritz train station, a young man catches her eye; perhaps a sunset and the sun's green ray await



Cast

Lisa Heredia, Vincent Gauther, Béatrice Romand , Marie Riviere



Production

In 1980 Rohmer embarked on a series of films each based on a proverb: the "Comedies and Proverbs". The fifth "Comedy and Proverb" was The Green Ray in 1986. The theme was a phrase from Rimbaud "Ah! que le temps vienne où les cœurs s'éprennent" (Oh! May the time come when hearts fall in love") Rohmer explained that "I was struck by the naturalness of television interviews. You can say that here, nature is perfect. If you look for it, you find it because people forget the cameras." As was becoming his custom in pre-production, Rohmer gathered his cast together to discuss the project and their characters, but then allowed each actor to invent their own dialogue. Rohmer stated that lead actress Marie Rivière "is the one who called the shots, not only by what she said, but by the way she'd speak, the way she'd question people, and also by the questions her character evoked from the others." The film was shot chronologically and in 16mm so as to be "as inconspicuous as possible, to have Delphine blend into the crowd as a way, ultimately, of accentuating her isolation." Rohmer also instructed his cinematographer Sophie Maintigneux to keep technical aspects of the shoot to a minimum so as to not interrupt or distract the actors. The film's only major expense was a trip to the Canary Islands in order to film the green rays there. Rohmer chose to premiere the film on Canal Plus TV, a pay-TV station that paid $130,000 for the film, which was only one fifth of its budget. Rohmer stated that "Cinema here will survive only because of television. Without such an alliance we won't be able to afford French films." The experiment paid off when the film was a theatrical hit after being released three days after its initial broadcast. It won the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1986 Venice Film Festival.



THE GREEN RAY (also known as SUMMER) movie review

Roger Ebert

October 24, 1986

If Eric Rohmer were basing a film on your diary, he would only use the entries where you observe that nothing much happened. He is interested in the times between the big moments, the times when boredom and disenchantment set in, and we search for signs and omens of change.



Perhaps he believes that you can best judge a person's character by observing how they behave when they feel they are not being judged.



In "Summer," Rohmer tells the story of Delphine, a discontented young woman who has just broken up with her boyfriend. She lives in Paris, which empties every August as the Parisians stage a mass exodus to the mountains or the seashore. She makes plans to spend her holiday with a girlfriend, but then, at the last moment, the girlfriend switches plans and Delphine is left to spend her vacation by herself.



The movie is about what she does.



Delphine is one of those people who does not like to be alone, but who is particular about what sort of company she's in. When another friend invites her to join a beach party for the weekend, for example, she is keenly aware that she's the only one without a partner - the fifth wheel. So she flees back to Paris. Her family wants her to spend the holidays with them in Ireland, but she won't go. She borrows her ex-husband's condo in a ski area, but hates the crowds and doesn't even stay the night.



Does her story become the saga of relentless unhappiness, leading up to some sort of explosion or self-destructive act? Not in a Rohmer film. He doesn't look for the big emotional blowups; he looks for the quiet desperation, the ways in which we are eventually defeated, not by tragedy, but by routine.



Delphine moves restlessly from one place to another, and eventually the movie reveals its hidden theme: She is incapable of playing the dumb singles games that lead to one-night stands. She meets a new girlfriend who flirts with two young men, and she flees in anger.



She recoils from the pre-packaged lines of the guys she meets in bars and on trains. She simply cannot engage in that kind of mindless double-talk any longer. Beneath her boredom is genuine anger at the roles that single women are sometimes expected to play.



Near the end of the movie, she finally finds someone she can talk to. Will this man become the next big love of her life? Rohmer doesn't say, and perhaps doesn't really care. Here is what I think he does. He takes a whole story - a love story, say - and leaves out the beginning and the end because those are always the same. He looks at what's left, and takes the part that reveals the most character. Then he makes a movie about that. He's like a photographer who frames only the part of the shot that interests him. Remember "Claire's Knee," which was, in a certain sense, really and literally about Claire's knee? "Summer" could be called "Delphine's Sigh."