A Summer's Tale (1996)

Rarely do we see such perfection in the direction of a film. Erich Rohmer gets all the details right - every movement, every gesture, all the uncertainties of growing up and falling in and out of love. I can see no flaws. I have to ask myself: Am I watching a group of actors? I seem to be watching a slice of real life with real people trying to cope with life's romantic problems. There's very little to the story. Gaspard, a young mathematics graduate comes to a beautiful island beach resort in Brittany, there to meet up with his girl friend Leon. When she doesn't turn up at the appointed time, he spends his days with two girls he meets on the island. The format of the film is much like a personal diary with the day to day events moving the story to its inevitable conclusion. Each of the three girls interrogate Gaspard about his attitudes to love, friendship and women in general. One feels that the indecisive Gaspard is more at home with his maths. and his guitar than with women. The strength of the film lies in the natural dialogue. It seems so familiar to us as we have all encountered similar experiences and thoughts in our youth. Eric Rohmer has a keen eye as he reveals all the hopes and disappointments of people searching for love. The photographer captures the idyllic beauty of this lovely resort, so bright and sunny. You can almost smell the sea air! It's a very gentle film and handled with a delicate touch, but one wonders in the end whether it may have been a little more enjoyable if a little more excitement could have been injected into the story.

Fmovies: Eric Rohmer's characters are mostly intellectuals, and mostly not so bright. On one hand, this is to Rohmer's credit, since it's realistic; on the other hand, the rarer characters with more penetrating intelligence (as in, especially, "My Night at Maude's") are nicer to listen to. Rohmer's characters love to yak on about ideas, art, and their feelings. The talk, on the most literal level, is generally unpersuasive, but relationships are formed through enjoyment of conversation, and character (not limited to vanity) is revealed via defensiveness and posturing.

"A Summer's Tale" follows twenty-something Gaspard during his summer vacation at a seaside resort town in Brittany. The people in the movie have fewer blind spots than most Rohmer characters, but not fewer difficulties. For a theme song, I'd suggest Weird Al Yankovic's "Good Enough For Now." The girl Gaspard had planned to meet alternately blows him off and strings him along. Another girl he meets, with whom there is palpable chemistry, has a distant boyfriend she doesn't seem very attached to. He vacillates on a third he is not crazy about but who bluntly conveys that she would take him. Gaspard is turned down twice for a romantic relationship (though not told to get lost entirely), and does the turning down once.

The interactions exhibit a believable mixture of genuine affection, indecision, and awkwardness. Rough edges are not glossed over as they might be by romanticism or in recollection. These might have been ingredients for a dull virtuous accuracy. But "A Summer's Tale" moves at a good pace, turns in the story feel natural and mostly not inevitable, and the whole is affecting and memorable.

A Summer's Tale – Pretty solid movie by Eric Rohmer. It is heavy on the dialogue and the dialogue is not too bad. In this movie Rohmer studies a couple of weeks in a life of a young man traveling on vacation before starting his new job. Like a lot of Rohmer's movies, it examines relationships which the characters develop, their perceptions of one another and how that perception changes over time. Rohmer examines people's motivations and tries to figure out what is it that really motivates people, what is it that they really want? The characters sometimes deceive, sometimes contradict themselves, sometimes without even realizing it. The way Rohmer gives insights through dialogue is pretty interesting, it often leaves the viewer to determine for themselves why a character said this or that and what it reveals about them. This is not an easy task and Rohmer doesn't give the viewers too many clues. Since Rohmer's characters are not very two dimensional, it is interesting to see how Rohmer skews the viewer's perception about them, the more they are revealed. For some reason the movie kind of looks like it was shot by a video camera or something, but that did not stand out for very long. The movie looks very carefully crafted and Rohmer is very particular about what he wants the viewer to see, often depicting relatively minor events or ending some scenes abruptly. A- Strong Recommend

A Summer's Tale fmovies. Conte d'été is just a great movie because it reflects how life is instead of demonstrating how it should or could be. There's absolutely nothing happening that makes you wonder: "What the hell is going on now" It could be the real holiday story somebody tells his good friends. It's so brilliantly realistic almost like a documentary movie. However, this doesn't mean there is no interesting plot. It's just pure life, there are real dialogues not this awful kind of small talks and pseudo intellectual nonsense which we know too good from Hollywood movies. Also the director has a feeling for significant details. The music scenes are just great and the landscape is just wonderful. Now I think I have to discover the Bretagne myself.... Some may criticize that the protagonists seem so helpless and remain unsatisfied during the plot but as I said, this movie demonstrates how life is and not how it should be. This is a very important difference. Of course the end is somehow unsatisfying but this is life and from some point of view it's a happy ending, too. Apart from that, it's not correct calling Gaspard a dull person as many did. He's shy and he's an artist. He doesn't like to be in a group and so on. But his character which lead to this unusual behaviour makes him so interesting. He is not showing emotions very often but in every moment you can imagine he is in an inner struggle.

One of Rohmer's best. Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) takes a month long vacation to a beach in Normandy, waiting for his more or less official girlfriend, the somewhat snotty Lena (Aurelia Nolin), to come. While waiting for her, he befriends the waitress and aspiring anthropologist Margot (Rohmer regular Amanda Langlet). Eventually, a relationship between the two develops, which seems to consists almost exclusively of long talks in the beach. But this is not all, since he soon also meets the somewhat promiscuous (but "principled") Solene (Gwaenelle Simon) in a disco. When Lena finally arrives to the resort, more than halfway into the movie, he finally finds himself in the position of having to choose one of the three. Rohmer would want us to think that Margot would be the best choice, and is difficult to disagree, since she's so charming and so willing to listen to him and even put up with him. It's amazing how Rohmer (who was in his late 70s when he directed this) is able to portray realistically how young people talk and interact. The final decision by Gaspard was a bit of a disappointment, but it was probably the more realistic possibility.

First of all, let's say that Eric Rohmer deserves a 7 foot, solid gold Oscar, because he is one of the very last directors NOT to use Hollywood music. Or better: elevator muzak. He does not use music at all, unless someone within the story is singing or playing or listening.

No need here for external cues to explain to the viewer what's happening on screen. What a terrible shame Rohmer is the last to do so !!!

The cinematography of this SUMMER TALE flows magnificently, playing with the backdrop of beautiful Brittany. There are no hard or harsh cuts; no need for welding goggles to sit through this movie !

This is a small yet honest tale: the protagonists talk, rather than babble or throw comic book lines at each other.

A SUMMER'S TALE is not an epic, nor depicting a world changing event or some bigger than life humdrum. In all its subtlety and sincerity it is something that could happen to all of us.

Thank you Monsieur Eric Rohmer for yet another wonderful film.