The Green Ray (film)

The Green Ray
French film poster
Directed by	Éric Rohmer
Produced by	Margaret Ménégoz
Written by	Eric Rohmer Marie Rivière
Starring	Marie Rivière
Music by	Jean-Louis Valéro
Cinematography	Sophie Maintigneux
Edited by	María Luisa García
Release date	1986
Running time	98 minutes
Language	French
Budget	$615,000
Box office	$3.4 million

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.

The movie opens at the start of Delphine's summer vacation. Delphine has just suffered the breakup of a relationship and then her travel companion ditched her so that her new boyfriend can accompany her to Greece instead. She is left without plans at a time when Paris is emptying for the summer. Another friend invites Delphine to join a beach party for the weekend, but she finds that she's the only one amongst the group who is single so she quickly returns to Paris. Her family pressures her to spend the holidays with them in Ireland, but she resists. She travels alone to the Alps, but is put off by hordes of vacationers and turns around. Traveling restlessly, the theme of the movie (characterized by Roger Ebert) becomes clear: Delphine "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." While in Biarritz she eavesdrops on a conversation about Jules Verne's novel Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray). According to Verne, when one sees a rare green flash at sunset, one's own thoughts and those of others are revealed as if by magic. At the Biarritz railway station she meets a young man who is travelling to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. She goes with him and together they observe le rayon vert (the Green flash).