July is the month when Parisians flee the city for their long anticipated vacation, with many middle-class residents depending upon on the kindness of friends with country or beach homes. Summer’s thirtyish and single Delphine watches her friends leave the city without having any fixed plans of her own, a wonderful pretext for Rohmer to foreground the quick-witted but unsettled heroine’s proclaimed devotion to chance as the cure for her loneliness. Unusual for Rohmer was the decision to film Summer in 16mm, in part to encourage improvisation during the shoot, a clear expression of his confidence in lead actress Marie Rivière. The film’s French title translates as “the green ray,” in reference to the rare burst of verdant light sometimes said to be visible just as the sun goes below the horizon. The question of whether or not this phenomenon is myth, fact or optical illusion serves as a guiding metaphor for the film.