With her pleasing minimalist approach, writer-director Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies) plots out a second variation on girls at a time in their lives when love and sexual discovery is the key dramatic element. The atmosphere the auteur creates conveys a special charm in the small, insular world of her adolescent and pre-adolescent subjects and again suggests adult arousal lurking in the subtext.
Her staging and scene settings say as much, richly full of opportunities to ogle, though presented with insight and sensitivity. A major theme running through her films, like a motif in a visual symphony, is water. Where there's water there are swimming pools, swim suits and bathing. Images of play and passion float through her stories like rafts of skin-colored flowers. It's a magnetic formulation to compel the admiration of both sexes.
Sciamma's first images are of a French family so idyllic you could frame it. Boyish ten-year old Laure (Zoé Héran) is on her dad's (Mathieu Demy) lap driving the car! The love and trust between the two is absolute, and it's a lovely moment. As we later see, he is supportive and loving to his precocious six-year old Jeanne (Malonn Lévana), as well. She's the talkative one (a mite too knowingly articulate for her tender years, perhaps). Jeanne can even drive a hard bargain when she wants something. Be that as it may, dad is the image of attentive fatherhood and mom (excellent Sophie Cattani) who is pregnant, shares her husband's devotion. There is no strife or discontent in this picture of unruffled domesticity.
The family, having just moved to a new apartment in a new neighborhood puts Laure in need of friends. She spots a group of boys of her approximate age playing nearby. Curiosity overcoming her natural reticence, she attempts to join in but by the time she gets downstairs, they are gone. Instead, Laure runs into Lisa (Jeanne Disson) who is taken by what she sees as the new boy on the block. When Lisa asks flat-chested Laure her name, Laure hesitates, makes a decision and says, "Mikael." Lisa is smitten.
The die is now cast for the central issue of the script to play out in a series of finely conceived episodes that explore all the ramifications of that initial lie, along with the suspense it generates about the potential consequences of being found out.
We share the secret of her misrepresentation, but no one else even suspects it for most of the compact 82 minutes of the drama. Would-be inamorata Lisa introduces Laure to the gang as the boys play in the wooded area near home. Tellingly, Lisa is precluded from the games because she's a girl, a fact that now takes on an edge of irony and amusement. When teams are formed for soccer, Laure the tomboy removes her top just as a few of the boys do, and proves so good at the game that she becomes a vital member of the group. Lisa's heart is pounding.
Laure returns her own form of affection, finding herself trying out a phenomenon she's more fascinated by than certain about, her gender preference still a matter to be determined. Some humor enters the charade when the gang plans a swim in the lake. To participate, Laure has to provide her fake character's credentials below her waist. She shapes a crotch filler with her sister's play-doh to properly fill her swim suit bottom (the upper part requiring no such prosthetic) and participates in the lake fun without suspicion. Later, a fight between Laure and one of the boys who has hurt little Jeanne proves to be the beginning of the end of her deception.
Sciamma uses the power of silent closeups to great benefit in conveying emotion and externalizing the internal -- a technique she pretty much masters as an integral part of her cinematic storytelling. It's a formidable part of the unrushed pace in which her carefully cast subjects flourish with nuanced loveliness. The story sometimes appears to have slowed to a point of inertia, but in fact there isn't a foot of film that doesn't keep us locked within the story. Our concern for the charming little girl builds under the director's fine touch. There is considerable artistry here.
Héran has performed in TV series when she was around Lévana's age, giving her, in addition to a perfect look for the gender masquerade, the confidence and know-how to solidify a fine performance that takes advantage of her outward adaptability. She's a sparkling young talent who is far from done with her acting career.
However suggestive Sciamma's films are, they are purposely so and skillfully done, with the depth of a frosty menthe a l'eau on a breezy veranda in southern France. She brings emerging awareness of physicality to a moral boundary line that doesn't require a stitch more or less to accomplish. Her creativity in this zone is a melding of youthful allure, keen dramatic structure and the delicate art of directing the young. Once you see her work you'll not likely pass up the next opportunity. Voyeurs welcome.
Her staging and scene settings say as much, richly full of opportunities to ogle, though presented with insight and sensitivity. A major theme running through her films, like a motif in a visual symphony, is water. Where there's water there are swimming pools, swim suits and bathing. Images of play and passion float through her stories like rafts of skin-colored flowers. It's a magnetic formulation to compel the admiration of both sexes.
Sciamma's first images are of a French family so idyllic you could frame it. Boyish ten-year old Laure (Zoé Héran) is on her dad's (Mathieu Demy) lap driving the car! The love and trust between the two is absolute, and it's a lovely moment. As we later see, he is supportive and loving to his precocious six-year old Jeanne (Malonn Lévana), as well. She's the talkative one (a mite too knowingly articulate for her tender years, perhaps). Jeanne can even drive a hard bargain when she wants something. Be that as it may, dad is the image of attentive fatherhood and mom (excellent Sophie Cattani) who is pregnant, shares her husband's devotion. There is no strife or discontent in this picture of unruffled domesticity.
The family, having just moved to a new apartment in a new neighborhood puts Laure in need of friends. She spots a group of boys of her approximate age playing nearby. Curiosity overcoming her natural reticence, she attempts to join in but by the time she gets downstairs, they are gone. Instead, Laure runs into Lisa (Jeanne Disson) who is taken by what she sees as the new boy on the block. When Lisa asks flat-chested Laure her name, Laure hesitates, makes a decision and says, "Mikael." Lisa is smitten.
The die is now cast for the central issue of the script to play out in a series of finely conceived episodes that explore all the ramifications of that initial lie, along with the suspense it generates about the potential consequences of being found out.
We share the secret of her misrepresentation, but no one else even suspects it for most of the compact 82 minutes of the drama. Would-be inamorata Lisa introduces Laure to the gang as the boys play in the wooded area near home. Tellingly, Lisa is precluded from the games because she's a girl, a fact that now takes on an edge of irony and amusement. When teams are formed for soccer, Laure the tomboy removes her top just as a few of the boys do, and proves so good at the game that she becomes a vital member of the group. Lisa's heart is pounding.
Laure returns her own form of affection, finding herself trying out a phenomenon she's more fascinated by than certain about, her gender preference still a matter to be determined. Some humor enters the charade when the gang plans a swim in the lake. To participate, Laure has to provide her fake character's credentials below her waist. She shapes a crotch filler with her sister's play-doh to properly fill her swim suit bottom (the upper part requiring no such prosthetic) and participates in the lake fun without suspicion. Later, a fight between Laure and one of the boys who has hurt little Jeanne proves to be the beginning of the end of her deception.
Sciamma uses the power of silent closeups to great benefit in conveying emotion and externalizing the internal -- a technique she pretty much masters as an integral part of her cinematic storytelling. It's a formidable part of the unrushed pace in which her carefully cast subjects flourish with nuanced loveliness. The story sometimes appears to have slowed to a point of inertia, but in fact there isn't a foot of film that doesn't keep us locked within the story. Our concern for the charming little girl builds under the director's fine touch. There is considerable artistry here.
Héran has performed in TV series when she was around Lévana's age, giving her, in addition to a perfect look for the gender masquerade, the confidence and know-how to solidify a fine performance that takes advantage of her outward adaptability. She's a sparkling young talent who is far from done with her acting career.
However suggestive Sciamma's films are, they are purposely so and skillfully done, with the depth of a frosty menthe a l'eau on a breezy veranda in southern France. She brings emerging awareness of physicality to a moral boundary line that doesn't require a stitch more or less to accomplish. Her creativity in this zone is a melding of youthful allure, keen dramatic structure and the delicate art of directing the young. Once you see her work you'll not likely pass up the next opportunity. Voyeurs welcome.
