The Green Ray (1986)Romance in cinema has always relied on the transformative potential of a chance encounter. Here, in the fifth of his Comedies and Proverbs series of films, Eric Rohmer explores the frustration of a woman, Delphine (Marie Rivière), whose faith in such serendipity is being tested. Weaving a quietly riveting account of Delphine’s aborted attempts at leaving Paris for a summer holiday, the film addresses her romantic idealism with both wry amusement and deep sympathy.
The eponymous ‘green ray’ is borrowed from a Jules Verne novel, described in the film as a romantic fairytale with a heroine “as simple as Cinderella or Snow White”. It also refers to a green flash of light that, should fate conspire in it, appears as the sun sets – a natural phenomenon melding the ordinary with the sublime. It is Rohmer and Rivière’s handling of both of these elements that makes this film so special to me.
Tom Price
Events Coordinator