Rohmer: Conte d'été (A Summer's Tale) (1996)

The third of Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons revolves around a young man, Gaspard (Melvil Poupard), holidaying at a seaside resort in Brittany, where he becomes close to three very different young women (Amanda Langlet, Gwenaelle Simon and Aurelia Nolin). It’s ostensibly about Gaspard choosing which woman he wants to romance, but Rohmer seems more interested in diffusing the space between friendship and romance – and it becomes more diffuse as the film progresses. In part, that’s because Rohmer structures it as a series of loose, lazy walks – you can really feel his influence on Linklater – as the characters explore every coastal path, or every path with a view of the coast, in the area. Although their conversation keeps coming back to love, they’re almost equally obsessed with the deep history of Brittany, especially the arrival of the Celts and the departure of the Newfoundlanders. And that obsession with the coast as a point of arrival and departure is beautifully accentuated by Rohmer’s trademark use of diegetic light and medium shots – they work to evoke the sheer circumambience of the ocean, which always feels present, even when we’re inside. In fact, it clarifies the affinity between Rohmer’s camera and the ocean - Rohmer already shoots space oceanically, which means that the ocean radiates out into every space; it feels like the object of every shot and the destination of every walk. In some ways, then, it would work best shot entirely on the water (it opens and closes on a boat), were it not for Rohmer’s unique combinations of walking and talking, which bob with an ebb and flow all of their own. In any case, the tide recedes as the film progresses, so that by the end the coastline and ocean have collapsed into a limitless beach anyway – an ambling, abstracted ambience that extends in all directions, fusing the magic and melancholy of travelling alone with the magic and melancholy of a brief, barely formulated love affair.