Rohmer used more than 90 minutes to set up a chance encounter. The camera follows the lonely and restless pace of the heroine, walking and stopping, wandering aimlessly. She wants someone to accompany her, but she always refuses the man who is close to her; she is afraid of being alone, but she doesn't want to squeeze into the crowd; she has strange principles, her emotions are easily out of control, and she can't find a source to talk to. This is Rohmer's best film about loneliness and love, simple and pure, capturing the mystery of love.
[Green Light] is a very "boring" movie in form: the heroine is sentimental, the long holiday is coming, and she is wandering around alone without her favorite friends, feeling lonely. Her boredom has a mesmerizingly resonant power, interpreting the deeply personal loneliness of being alone in a crowd. This kind of loneliness is not due to being isolated from the group - the heroine has close friends and family around her, and she often meets strangers who can talk to each other; nor is it due to being unpopular - there are many men who approach the heroine many times. It is a kind of loneliness that can only be felt when suddenly quiet alone in the joy of the crowd.
Rohmer cuts the holiday life of the heroine Dai Fen in the form of a diary, subtitles the day of the week at the beginning of each scene, and the only connection between them is the protagonist Dai Fen - what she did on that day. Calling, seeing friends, having dinner, walking alone, chatting, and so on, accumulated her loneliness and yearning for love.
The camera sometimes keeps a distance from Dai Fen, photographing her walking alone on a beach full of tourists, a deserted mountain road, a quiet countryside, and a leisurely park. Rohmer thus endows the film with a strong sense of presence, coupled with an undramatic plot design—a record of daily behavior, making Daphne’s loneliness close to real life.
Improvisation is a style of video that Rohmer has been experimenting with since his "Comedy and Proverbs" series. He brought the creative ideas of the French real film movement that emerged in the 1960s into the feature films.
Reality film is a genre of documentary creation that emphasizes the involvement of directors and cameras in the documentary process, represented by Jean Rouch and Edgar Moran's [Summer Chronicle]. The director took to the streets of Paris, entered the factory, entered the apartment with questions, visited young people, talked with them, opened up their ideas, and let people of different identities, occupations, ages, and nationalities, in front of the camera, frankly express their thoughts and problems in life . Rohmer agreed with this kind of creation very much, and used a lot of documentary techniques in the feature films, paying attention to daily dialogue and improvisation.
In the script stage, Rohmer and the main actors often meet and chat, enter their lives, and even go to their rooms to find suitable situations and design characters and lines. [Green Light] was Rohmer's first attempt to heavily improvise a script. In the process of chatting with the heroine, he led the topic to the topics he was interested in. When shooting, he designed a situation that was convenient for the heroine to improvise. Most of the scenes in the film (chat, solo, leisure, etc.) have room for improvisation, like documenting the lives and conversations of real people.
Rohmer makes the shot also "improvised" (and possibly a well-crafted improvisation). When the character is speaking, the camera will move away and shoot other characters and the surrounding environment at will, as if bringing the audience into the scene for observation; or zoom the camera slightly away, and mix in the clear ambient sound while recording the character's voice to make the picture better. The focus is shifted from the dialogue to the situation, highlighting the alienation of the protagonist. The lens loses its subject and moves improvisationally.
The story of [Green Light] began two weeks before the long vacation, when Dafen received a call from a friend at the company and was told that the other party could not take her vacation with her. Dai Fen's face immediately turned ugly. Except for this friend, she couldn't think of anyone else to spend a long vacation with. She doesn't want to travel alone. The next day, Dai Fen met with another friend, and she was very worried. The friend advised her to find another company, or travel alone, and take the initiative to meet strangers. Dai Fen looked embarrassed, which was difficult for her.
In this world, there are always some people who resist some things that are common to others, but have some incredible ideas or principles. Dai Fen always complained about being lonely, but he was unwilling to open his arms to strangers like a friend, to enjoy the joy of a group of people, and to let go of all kinds of shackles in his heart.
A friend suggested Dai Fen to sign up for a tour group, but she was reluctant to travel with the group; her family invited her to reunite, and she didn’t want to spend the vacation in such an ordinary way; she joined a friend’s family gathering, and after a day of playing, she felt uncomfortable again, want to leave. At any time, she can't forget that she is "alone". Even if there are so many friends around her, and there are always men who want to get close to her, she still can't feel the joy of being integrated into each other.
Today, Dai Fen may be labeled as "hypocritical" and "pretentious". Her loneliness is indeed an emotion that needs to be handled properly. It is like everyone is drunk and I am alone, and it is easy to be misunderstood as self-righteous and lofty. Rohmer's genius lies in getting it right, and he really understands the experience of loneliness. Perhaps we can guess that the politically conservative Rohmer also felt lonely among the radical New Wave directors.
Jules Verne's novel "Green Light" is the source of inspiration for this film. Rohmer implants the most important mysterious plot in the novel through the dialogue of five old people in the second half of the film. At this moment, the bored Dai Fen happened to pass by them and eavesdropped on the conversation. The old people said that the green light is a flash of light when the sun goes down, and it is extremely rare. Those who see it will become sharp and judge the true and false of love.
Daphne believes in this mysterious romance. She is still the same as before, spending time alone everywhere. Several times when a boy approached her, she was ruthlessly rejected. When she was about to give up her trip to go back to Paris, she met a man staring at her at the train station while she was reading Dostoevsky's "Idiot." A man had followed her on the road before. She was going to sit on a chair and read a book to rest, but when the man tried to approach her, she got up and left in annoyance.
This time, instead of avoiding bored, Dai Fen took the initiative to talk to the man and invited him to watch the sunset. When the man sent out a date to Daphne, she suddenly became nervous, watching the sunset and wept. Although she didn't know why she was crying, the man hugged her and watched the sunset with her eyes. The moment the green light appeared, Dai Fen was extremely excited, and the man laughed and cried when he saw her, and laughed along with her.
The film ends in the afterglow of the setting sun after the green light appears. The encounter between Dai Fen and this man was no different from the approach she had rejected before. The mystery and romance of love may be here. If you see the right eye, it is an encounter; if you see it wrongly, it is loneliness. Earlier, from Dai Fen's friend, we knew that there was a man who was looking forward to her looking for him. The friend suggested that Dai Fen go to that man to go on vacation with her, and she smiled wryly. The so-called loneliness is not finding someone to accompany you, but finding the most suitable person to accompany you.
(Originally published in the December issue of "Watching Movies")
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