This is the first time that I’ve taken a scene-by-scene approach to a movie and ended up liking and respecting it less as a result. I am officially downgrading “The Green Ray” with one more essay to go tomorrow, it is no longer on my list of favorite films.

I’m actually having a hard time figuring out what I saw in this movie the first time around. “The Green Ray” is an interesting experiment for Rohmer and the movie at times is an accurate portrait of depression. But that doesn’t necessarily make for a good film. Being around a depressed person is an unpleasant experience, especially if it is someone you don’t know and have no memory of sunnier days alongside.

So, back to that cafe with Delphine and her new friend. They meet up with two random guys. There’s a dark haired one in a leather jacket who sits down next to Delphine and a very weird light haired guy who immediately starts chatting up the Swedish woman. They have a goofy conversation where she keeps pretending to be from a different country and they try on conversing in different languages. I suppose it’s supposed to be light and clever, but they come across to me like a couple of drunk, not-all-that-funny people very assured that they are hilarious.

Delphine is watching this go on with a combination of bored detachment and horror — and for once, I can’t blame her for it. It continues for almost five minutes and there’s no point in me recounting the conversation, it’s purely inane.

So, Delphine runs off and the guy in the leather jacket follows her. He tries to convince her to go with them dancing that night, but she’s clearly not interested and heads back to her borrowed apartment. There, she gets the phone number for the train station, where she plans to travel back to Paris the next day.

I keep saying that something magical is about to happen … but it actually isn’t all that magical. She meets a guy at the train station in the next scene. It feels completely random and maybe Rohmer wanted it that way. I’ll elaborate in tomorrow’s final essay.