Half past ten on a summer night
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Half past ten on a summer night |
| Original title | 10:30 PM buzzer |
| Country of production |
United States of Spain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1966 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jules Dassin |
| script | Jules Dassin based on the novel “Dix heures et demie du soir en été” (1960) by Marguerite Duras |
| production |
Anatole Litvak Jules Dassin |
| music | Cristóbal Halffter |
| camera | Gábor Pogány |
| cut | Roger Dwyre |
| occupation | |
| |
Half past ten on a summer night is an American-Spanish social drama filmed in 1965. Directed by Jules Dassin played Romy Schneider , Melina Mercouri and Peter Finch the leading roles.
action
Somewhere in the Spanish province in the middle of summer. A married couple, the Greek Maria and the Briton Paul, spend their vacation in the southern sun together with their daughter Judith. They were joined by Claire, a close friend of Paul. When a storm suddenly hits the landscape, the four look for accommodation in a small, sleepy place. At the same time there is a terrible act of violence: the young farmer Rodrigo Palestra shoots his adulterous wife and her lover. Then the man goes into hiding.
Maria feels a deep inner emptiness in her marriage to Paul, and so the bloody act is also a reason for her to question everything that has gone before. This outburst of violence, of passion, is what fascinates her. She feels a connection to the fugitive murderer Rodrigo in a not inexplicable way. It is also an act of self-liberation when she secretly drives the killer out of town one night out of passion to hide him. Maria promises the young Spaniard to come back the next few days and take him across the border to France. Finally, Maria informs her husband and Claire about their seminal encounter. All three drive to the agreed place, but they only find Palestra dead. In his desperation and hopelessness, he saw only one way out: to shoot himself.
The midday glow turns the landscape into an oven. To avoid the sweltering heat, the four tourists stop at an inn near the highway to Madrid. Maria begins to get drunk unrestrained there; Palesta's suicide has robbed her of the last hope for change, the faith to spice up the life that appears empty and meaningless to her. Their alcohol intoxication enables Paul and Claire, who have long wanted each other, to indulge in their lust without any inhibitions. But while Claire is genuinely interested in Paul, Paul does not seem ready for a fundamental change in his life; he is still too attached to his wife, who has long since slipped away from him.
Arrived in Madrid, the Englishman puts everything on one card and tries, now copying the passion of Rodrigo Palestra, to take his wife back by storm. But Maria is now clearer than ever before: she no longer wants her boring husband, she regards her marriage with Paul as a failure, as dead. The encounter with Palestra revealed to her the futility of this relationship. Once again, togetherness is faked, the emptiness whitewashed when the three adults visit a flamenco club and then, at 10:30 in the summer night, stroll through the streets of the city. When the three temporarily separate over a silly children's game, each of them, who until now at least shared their loneliness with one another, feels an inner loneliness.
Production notes
Half past ten on a summer night premiered on October 24, 1966 in New York City. Four days later the film was also shown in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Reviews
“The heavy, carefully and sometimes ingeniously staged film soaks colportage with sentimentality and tries its hand at subtle sex: lesbian love, voyeur lust and attractive torment are mixed in the three-way battle. Romy Schneider even clears her chest for a heated bed scene, but has to let the participant tell her: "Don't bother. You have no talent for a beast."
“Fine fateful drama based on Marguerite Duras, filmed by Mercouri's husband Jules Dassin (" Rififi "). Conclusion Exceptionally designed menage-à-trois. "
“As a mischievous reference to SONNTAGS NIE, you afford to parody a chanson as a plot element. The plot places less value on dialogue and action than on mood colors. "
"A highly ambitious film with remarkable actors and an unusual color scheme, which ultimately coarsens Marguerite Duras' psychologically finely-spun novel into an overly indifferent and fatalistic drama of fate with no nuances."
"Despite the well-cast leading role (Melina Mercouri) and the dense atmosphere, director Dassin overloaded the triangular story with vague psychologisms, so that an ultimately unsatisfactory chamber play with some lengths was created."
Web links
- Half past ten on a summer night on spiegel.de
- Ten-thirty on a summer night in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Half past ten on a summer night. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 421/1966