Film Roundtable Recommends…
Sweltering Summer Tales
A selection of seasonal films evoking latent memories, explorations, and desires…
What is it about late June to late August that particularly sets abuzz that wondering, wandering spirit? In this latter end of the summer season, there arises a specific interlude; a detour from established priorities or limits. Less informed by innocent curiosity than unexplained whims…Identity and desire may morph and bend in peculiar ways, heightening impulses and indulgences we may have repressed weeks earlier, and wouldn’t even consider come February. Perhaps there is a collective possession by the languidly frenzied ghost of “last chance for…” harbinger of mayhem and misadventure, yearning to escape from safety of certitude, reaching for anomos. Whether one leaves home or stays in place, the metaphysical tourist comes for us, stirring intimate questions, opening the liminal dimension within which we can try on a penumbral psyche, where ironclad rationality melts slowly, subtly, or extravagantly and all at once.
Or maybe we’re just hot and bored.
Whatever the cause, within the interim of in-betweenness, we may pretend there are no consequences; revelations or late night (early morning?) deeds can be sneaked past the official record.
Those who return to their designated path come September, without complication or compunction, like the self-seeking tourist that longs to fulfill some iota of elusive satisfaction through a vessel of the exotic, be that body or land, only to discard the unfamiliar and retreat home once the fill of novelty fades.
Certain films in this selection make clear that the repercussions from our choices don’t care what month it is, and there is no guaranteed constant to return to after the metaphysical tourist has gone.
So, before you embark on a last minute road-trip with strangers or stumble into an old flame, enjoy visual ventures in the precarious possibilities inherent in this most limbo-y limbo-period of the year. Vicariously indulge, or prepare for the inevitable.
1. Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962)
Il Sorpasso follows the unplanned and deliriously chaotic road trip taken by Roberto, a young student, and Bruno, an impossibly suave middle-aged man who mysteriously drives his way into Roberto’s life. The convertible that carries them becomes our third lead of sorts, as they embark on a mad-cap voyage.
2. Crazed Fruit ( Kō Nakahira, 1956)
Within a very specific distillation of time and place (the world of upper-class teens from 1950’s Japan fooling around on vacation), two brothers fall in love with a woman and get to know her in contradictory ways, highlighting the mix of innocence, fantasy, and impulsiveness inherent to sheltered adolescence.
3. Luxor (Zeina Durra, 2020)
Hana takes a trip to the ancient city of Luxor and runs into a man she once knew. Questioning her previous decisions and processing her experiences as an aid worker, she languorously wanders the familiar ruins of the historical city and the relationship, desires and regrets stirred.
4. Summer with Monika (Ingmar Bergman, 1953)
Harry impetuously quits his job, steals his father’s boat, and embarks on an idyllic summer trip with a near stranger named Monika, entranced, and incongruously hoping to bring escapism home and make it last…
5. Claire’s Knee (Eric Rohmer, 1970)
In the fifth of the “Six Moral Tales,” the quandary of “man meeting woman at the very moment he is about to commit to someone else...” manifestly demonstrates Rohmer’s way of conjuring what is buried deep in the subconscious, defying reason. While making the most of his last summer before marriage, Jerome runs into Laura, the ex who clearly still pines for him. Laura introduces him to two teenager sisters and awkwardly, Jerome forms an uncomfortably intense fixation with the knee the eldest, Claire…
6. Os Cafajestes (Ruy Guerra, 1962)
Two small-time crooks hatch a plot to take compromising photos of a young woman on a beach, in order to blackmail her wealthy uncle. The haphazard, messy plan gets even messier when the woman, Leda, convinces them to go after her cousin instead…(rude.)
7. Stranger by the Lake (2014, Alain Guiraudie)
At a popular summertime cruising spot, Franck meets Michel, an alluring but possibly murderous stranger, and Henri, a man healing from a break-up; what unfolds is a heady mix of paranoia, lust, and distrust.
8. La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967)
Another of the Six Moral Tales, each inspired by F.W Munrau’s Sunrise. Our titular collectionneuse is the ambiguous, inscrutable Haydée, (apathetic manifestation of male fantasy or empowered sexual being?) given the nickname for her habit of bringing a different man back each night, to the home in St. Tropez she is sharing with Rodolphe (who she had also previously had a fling with) and his friend, Daniel. A third friend (Adrian) joins, and as usual, restraint becomes the game as Adrian attempts to not give in to Haydée’s pull.
9. The Sheltering Sky (Bernardo Bertolluci, 1990)
Vittorio’s Storaro’s absurdly majestic cinematography frames a couple who has drifted apart, and takes off to Algeria in hopes of finding connection again. Of course, they seem to only find fuel for further miscommunication and detachment, their movements heartwrenchingly scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
10. Le Bonheur (1965, Agnes Varda)
Does this even take place in summer? Here there is ambiguity in everything, at the center being what the happiness of the title truly entails, and the tragic consequence such a happiness might leave behind, as we witness the before, during, and after of one man's perplexing attempt to marry an impossibly blissful family life with the thrill of a new fling.
11. Summer Lovers (Randal Kleiser, 1982)
This rom-com about a group of young adults vacationing in Greece was not critically well-received and is kind of forgotten, but perhaps partly for that reason it’s a particular kind of relaxing detour to a world removed from reality, like a particularly humid summer night on vacation spent dancing to the most unapologetically nostalgic forgotten hits, with new friends you may never meet again.
12. Eternal Summer (Leste Chen, 2006)
Three best friends anxiously dance around the changing boundaries that define their previously prescribed roles in one another’s lives, as long held back desire complicates their established dynamics and adherence to repressive societal expectations, during their last summer before graduation.
13. Cairo Time (Ruba Nadda, 2009)
Expecting to take a holiday and visit her husband in Cairo, Juliette instead finds herself wandering hesitantly alone, and eventually traveling with her husband’s charming (former) security officer, Tareq, in the epitome of a simmering, hypnotizing tour.
14. Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
All the elements of impulsive last minute summer plans come into play here: a long friendship with unspoken tensions, an alluring stranger, and a frenzied road trip to an illusory destination of untouchable bliss.
text: Ximena Prieto
