Near Orouët

Jacques Rozier's 1973 film covers three weeks of summer holiday spent by three young women on France's Atlantic coast. There is almost no plot: they cook, play cards, go out, spend time with men. A man from one of their workplaces joins them, and things go badly for him. The method is observation. Rozier leaves the actors loose across long scenes and the camera waits; laughter, boredom and silence all stay in without cuts. That is why it runs close to three hours. The result carries the real sense of holiday time almost exactly. The film drew no attention on release and was forgotten for a long time, then rediscovered in later years and given a place of its own in French cinema. Rozier made few films across his career and none of them fitted a commercial mould. Who it's for: viewers open to eventless, observational cinema. Who it's not for: viewers who need narrative progress; genuinely nothing happens across the film and it is long.