Shopping for food*

“I thought you'd be hungry, maybe.”

Schneider and Ronet's characters go get their groceries in a tiny, surprisingly well-stocked-with-Asian-food-items French corner shop, ánd manage to find all the ingredients needed. One rookie mistake: Uncle Ben's. Of all the rice in the world…

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Characters go on a date, or fall in love*

“It would be thrilling if you were willing, and if it can never be, pity me, for you were born to be kissed, I can’t resist, you are temptation, and I am yours!”

– Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed, Temptation (1933)

On a beautiful summer day in Rimini, Carlo, the handsome son from a bourgeois home, saves a little girl and becomes infatuated with the girl's mother, a young widow years his senior. Set in July 1943, the events in the outer world (poss. spoilers) and the fate of the two uneven lovers slowly come to their logical conclusion.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Someone's all bundled up*. No list of summer films is complete without Éric Rohmer.

“I even tried not to think. I was face-to-face alone with the sea, far from cruises and beaches, fulfilling a childhood dream put off year after year. I lost myself completely in the play of shadow and light, sinking into a lethargy heightened by the water. That state of passivity, of complete availability, promised to last much longer than the euphoria of one’s first summer dip into the ocean. I could easily see myself spending a whole month this summer this way.”

– Adrien

An art dealer and his writer friend plan to spend the summer together in a villa on the Côte d'Azur. A young woman, a collector of sorts, disrupts their retreat.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Someone with sunburn, or a skin condition*

“I treasure some kinds of old Thai disaster movies. Many of such tell a forbidden love story between a man and a woman that the mother earth destroyed them. Similarly, Blissfully Yours contains innocent narrative and simple characters. The settings are open landscapes and the disaster plot is there, except that it is transformed into another kind of disaster.”

– A.W., via

Min and Roong cherish their love among the uncertainty of his residence status. A old woman guards them, and soothes Min's blistered skin.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

(People at) an airport*

 

It's foggy at Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof, the Allies' airbridge to the West, and all the planes into and out of West Berlin are grounded. In any other metropolis this could mean taking a train, enjoy the city's nightlife or maybe just a bed for the night. In post-Wall bureaucracy-happy West Berlin, this means endless waits with strangers. And so, with nowhere to go, a Polish jazz band mingles with British spouses, a lonely South African farmer, a model and her beau.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

My ideal vacation spot, country, city, town, or resort*

 

An island, in this case Capri (granted I've never been there), off-season, in a space and time lost in the mists. It'll occasionally rain and it's cold enough to dress up.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

A character wearing pink on National Pink Day (USA), not to be confused with the much more poignant International Day of Pink

“Paris, Paris, Paris C'est sur la Terre un coin de paradis Paris, Paris, Paris, De mes amours c′est lui le favori Mais oui, mais oui, pardi Ce que j'en dis on vous l′a déjà dit Et c'est Paris, qui fait la parisienne Qu′importe, qu'elle vienne du nord ou bien du midi Et c'est aussi le charme et l′élégance Et l′âme de la France Tout cela, mais c'est Paris”

Joséphine Baker, Paris, Paris (Georges Zacharie Tabet)

Cowherd Mory and student Anta journey from Dakar to their new destination, the city of Paris.

A character in panic mode on International Panic Day

“Have you seen Mr Tavernier tonight?”

Julien Tavernier has a plan about how to run off with his boss' wife. There's just this one snag. No time to panic, c'est cool c'est cool.

A movie that takes place in nature for National Trails Day (USA)

 

Mavka, a forest nymph, falls in love with mortal Lukash, who in his turn is punished by the Spirit of the Forest for marrying another mortal instead. Curse upon curse, Lukash is turned into a wolf, and Mavka into a weeping willow.

 

The colours, mood and impact of the four seasons on mortal and sprite alike is there, not only made visible by Ilyenko's ethereal, spiralling camera, but somewhere blooming deep inside us, observing.

A film scene with a bike for World Bicycle Day

 

Jean (Marc Barbé) follows the route of the Tour de France. He sees women, picks them up, takes them out. Claire, infatuated with him, is taken in by his darkness. At night, the cyclists continue the course.