TEEN ANGST AND SUBURBAN ADOLESCENCE

Céline Sciamma: Water Lilies, France, 2007 with Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachère
Viewed in theaters with English subtitles, Jan 14, 2008. Running time: 85 MIN.

Coming soon…

Naissance des pieuvres (2007)
★★★ / ★★★★

Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, “Naissance des pieuvres” was about three fifteen-year-old girls–Marie (Pauline Acquart), Anne (Louise Blachère) and Floriane (Adele Haenel)–in the middle of adolescence swimming, hanging out, and laying about in the middle of summer. Marie wants Anne but Anne initially doesn’t even consider Marie to be on her level. Marie is best friends with Floriane and Floriane is interested in Anne’s crush/boytoy (Warren Jacquin). This leaves Marie in an awkward position because the other two are too cooped up into their own worlds to notice that Marie is suffering on the inside. I really felt for Acquart’s character because she can’t quite express who she really is both because of her own insecurities and expectations from other people. She’s a complex character because I felt like she doesn’t really try to hide who she really is; she’ll actually quite easy to open up as long as someone bothers to show interest. I can relate to her the most because her shyness and calculating nature sometimes gets the best of her. And better yet, she knows it but can’t quite do anything about it. I thought her relationship with Anne was very interesting to watch because I wasn’t exactly sure how it would turn out. Just when I think it’s going to go one way, it takes the opposite direction so I constantly had to reevaluate my expectations. However, the whole thing remains fluid and poetic instead of feeling forced. The biggest weakness I could find was that the film did not spend much time developing Floriane. I felt like she should have had more layers instead of merely crushing on a guy. There were times when I thought, “What about the third girl? What’s her role in the bigger scheme of things?” And those questions were not sufficiently answered. I think the defining scene of this picture was when Marie was watching Anne and her team practicing for a competitive synchronized swimming. We see elegance and beauty above the water but we see quick constant kicking underwater. I think it reflected what the characters were going through at the time of their respective challenges. This is a coming-of-age story that is astute, observant, sensitive and sometimes downright sexy.

Pode chamá-lo pelo nome original, por Water Lilies ou Lírios D’água. O que importa é que esse filme retrata o lado humano do desejo e a atração pelo mesmo sexo. Sem nenhum tipo de preconceito mostrado, Water Lilies consegue nos fazer apreciar o amor, seja ele da forma que for. Eu diria que é o lado da descoberta com o lado da insegurança. As passagens da vida que nos guardam tantas surpresas, e nos põe dentro de uma relação tímida entre três meninas. O quase fim de uma amizade e o começo de uma paixão enloquecedora.

No começo assistimos a uma apresentação de nado sincronizado – ou ballet aquático. A primeira personagem nos é apresentada. Marie (Pauline Acquart) está fazendo o mesmo, também assistindo. Sua amiga Anne (Louise Blachère) está se apresentando no dia e durante a descontração um grupo de meninas entra na piscina. Ao comando dele está Floriane (Adèle Haenel), uma excelente bailarina das águas. Marie se encanta com a menina e começa a persegui-la até que consegue convencê-la a ir assistir os treinos do grupo. Com o passar do tempo o sentimento em Marie, que é mais nova que Floriane pelo menos uns 3 anos, vai crescendo, tomando conta dela por completo. Com mais um pouco de tempo isso começa a ser correspondido, mas de uma forma diferente.

Uma produção francesa sempre nos traz novas experiências. Naissence des Pieuvres é uma delas. A cena final do filme junto com a trilha sonora chega a nos arrepiar. Pode ser um filme que apenas trata de um romancezinho de adolescência com o diferêncial de ser um filme homossexual – lésbico -, mas na verdade é um filme que mostra a realidade. Tudo pode nos acontecer. A sexualidade do ser humano é uma mínima parcela de todo dele. Os sentimentos nos afloram, ainda mais em idades confusas, e nos mostram caminhos diferentes, gostosos, mágicos, confortantes, entre outras coisas. Não sou gay, ok pessoal? hehehe… Apenas quero dizer que hoje odiamos algo, seja uma música, um filme, um estilo de vida. Amanhã podemos mudar drásticamente de opinião e do odiar passar a adorar.

Eu confesso aqui que acho bonito um relacionamento lésbico quando esse é verdadeiro. Nada de mulher-macho agarrando mulher-macho. Mas sim mulher amando outra mulher. O carinho e a delicadeza entre as atrizes durante o filme é sensacional.

Como nem toda história tem um final feliz, Lírios D’água também nos avisa dos receios, medos, oportunismos e, acima de tudo, a amizade. As vezes ela – a amizade – nos permite não fazer loucuras; “Você tem que ficar comigo. Sem você eu faço muitas loucuras”.

Acabo de terminar de ver Naissance des pieuvres (“El nacimiento de los pulpos”, según google translate, “water lilies” según los yankies), y la verdad es que me pareció una cagada. La historia de tres minas que hacen nado sincronizado y cada una tiene su quilombo.

Enumero:

La del medio (Marie) es la protagonista, una pendeja calladisima, aburrida y lesbiana que no se anima a salir del closet.

La de la derecha (Floriane), aparenta ser terrible putita, pero al final no es nada mas que una calienta pava que come mocos de produccion industrial, calienta a la mitad del reparto y al 75% de la audiencia… Y asi los deja a todos. nota aparte, esta buenisima.

La de la izquierda (Anne) es la tipica gorda acomplejada… Pero acomplejadisima !!! pobre mina, cada vez que aparece es solo para dejar eso bien asentado.

Marie es amiga de Anne y esta enamorada de Floriane, Anne a su vez esta enamorada de François, el pito de la peli, y Floriane esta enamorada de si misma.

La pelicula dura una hora veinte, y es la historia de como Anne trata de levantar a Floriane, Marie trata de levantar a François, y Floriane se muestra putona y sexualmente ambigua, calentando a todo el mundo.

Se ven las pendejas de 15 años en tetas o en corpiño, un polvo, un par de situaciones politicamente incorrectas, y listo… Polemica para rato.

Lo de las pendejas semidesnudas no seria molesto, si no fuese tan evidentemente forzado.

Al final, una pelicula a la que le sobran 40 minutos y varios corpiños y le falta trama y bombachas…

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Si queres tener una opinion propia, buscala en tu tracker amigo:

BtJunkie

Subtitulos

This post is slightly useless as a guide for Dutch people, I suppose, since they can read my reviews in Dutch on Filmtotaal. For me, though, it’s a way of finally writing something in English about all these movies. After the jump, reviews of

Margot at the Wedding
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Naissance des Pieuvres/Water Lilies
Paranoid Park
The Band’s Visit
Mio Fratello e Figlio Unico/My Brother is an Only Child

Margot At The Wedding

It’s rare enough to find strong, complex, intriguing, thoroughly flawed characters. It’s even rarer for them to be female. And yet here, that’s what we have: Nicole Kidman is absolutely brilliant as the passive-aggressive Margot, who’s both repulsive and alluring, scary and oddly familiar. And while she is undoubtedly the center of the movie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black and beginner Zane Pais are just as precisely drawn and sharply observed as Margot’s sister, her brother-in-law-to-be, and her son, who you can tell she’s already irrevocably screwed up, despite the fact that she does love him.

One moment I love is with Margot’s husband – John Turturro, for once playing the most normal person in sight). He does something nice – something wholly insignificant, but totally altruistic. And Margot gets furious. She can’t stand it, because somehow her husband doing something good highlights how not good she is. And the scene in the bookstore, where she’s asked about her inspiration, and misinterprets the question in a telling way… well, whether Noah Baumbach uses his family as inspiration of not, that’s good writing.

The film’s too raw to be called perfect, and the business with the neighbors isn’t quite necessary, but I wish there were more films like this: sharp, funny, and with at the center a woman who’s not only strong but fully-fleshed out, uncompromising, and uncompromised. IT takes balls to be such a bitch on screen, someone who’s not just unlikeable but unlikeable in a non-stereotypical, almost too-close-for-comfort way.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Praise has been heaped on Lumet’s latest, but I don’t quite get it. I agree, the performances are stellar and some individual scenes are incredibly strong. But what’s with all the jumping back and forth in time, and why the jarring way of doing it? I know, playing with continuity is all the craze….or wait, what’s that? It’s not the nineties anymore? Nope, it isn’t, and while I have nothing against playing with timelines in general, I do have something again pointless jumping back and forth in time.

And pointless it is. No new information is given that we couldn’t have guessed, the “perspective shifts” have no use since the storytelling remains wholly objective, and it makes the story drag. Lumet wanted to make a Greek tragedy, it seems, but this has none of the grace of gravitas of a Greek tragedy, and the conclusion is based more on (mis)fortune than on a decisive character flaw.

I feel like I might be too hard on this film. After all, some scenes (like Marisa Tomei’s departure and what follows) are really good. But with all the acclaim the film’s been given, I feel like a dissenting voice is called for.

Naissance des Pieuvres/Water Lilies

One of my absolute favorites from the film festival in Rotterdam, this moody, beautiful film is one of the best depictions of adolescence ever put on screen. And like Margot, this one’s exceptional also for the gender it chooses to imagine. I don’t think any other film evokes so strongly the feeling of being a 15-yo girl. It made me remember all too clearly…and I was relieved when I realized I’ve now truly left that stage of my life behind.

Marie, Anne, Floriane: the three main characters are stereotypes, at least in their broad outline. The still childish girl, the chubby girl, the pretty one: we’ve seen them before. These stereotypes make the story accessible, and make this at least look like a general story. Luckily, the details are also sufficiently filled in to make sure these are also real girls, full of insecurities and shattered hopes. They’re not innocent – children never are – but they do lose, in the course of the film, a certain sort of innocence.

The French title means “birth of the squids”. The legs of the synchronized swimmers, seen in gorgeous underwater shots, do look like the tentacles of a squid. Most of all though, the synchronized swimming serves as a potent metaphor for, to paraphrase director Céline Sciamma, the plight of being a girl/woman: all smiles on the surface, and a frantic struggle below.

Paranoid Park

Yet another languorous meditation on, well, stuff, from Gus van Sant, and a nice pairing with Water Lilies as this is again a film from a teenage perspective in which adults are almost absent. The faces of the parents in Paranoid Park stay out of focus, and the only one we see clearly, detective Lu, is clearly an outsider trying – but failing – to breach the teenage world.

This van Sant film unfortunately lacks the clarity of the so-called death trilogy (Elephant, Gerry, Last Days) and is sometimes a bit too reminiscent of his older work (it takes place in Portland, there are long tracking shots through school corridors, there’s music by Elliott Smith etc.). However, it does have an amazing soundscape, with everything from Nino Rota music to country to electronic bleeps. Also, Gabe Nevins, a non-professional recruited on MySpace, is entirely devoid of the self-consciousness you usually see in teen actors, and his narration is pitch-perfect.

I whined about the time shifting in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead – well, here the device is used correctly, i.e., with a purpose. This purpose is not to withhold information, as we figure out pretty soon more or less what happened. But as the whole story is told from the perspective of main character Alex, it makes sense that he circles around the crucial event, that he focuses extensively on the periods just before and just after the moment that he’d rather not think about too much.

The Band’s Visit

Not many films start by a statement of their own insignificance. “Once-not long ago-a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this…It wasn’t that important.” And it’s the truth: this is not a grand, important story, there isn’t even much story there. But these people are a delight to spend some time with, and it’s one of those films that thrives on beautiful little character moments. That it doesn’t address the conflict in the Middle-East is, to me, not a cop-out but a reminder that behind all the hatred that we keep hearing about on the news, these really are just people.

And let’s not forget: it’s funny. Very funny, even, though not necessarily in a laugh-out-loud way. There’s much visual humor: director Kolirin loves placing the men, in their baby blue uniforms, in frames, and the contrast between their formality and the desolation of their surroundings is funny in itself. But there are also great moments of character humor, for instance in how Haled’s standard way of seducing girls is to start singing my funny Valentine.

At the heart of the movie, there’s a great atypical romance. Ronit Elkabetz is beautiful as diner-owner Dina, and Sasson Gabai makes it entirely believable that he’s the one she would choose to pursue over the pretty (and easy) Haled. In the lines of his face you can read the whole story of his life, and it’s fascinating.

Mio Fratello È Figlio Unico/ My Brother is an Only Child

Like La Meglio Gioventú/The Best of Youth, by the same screenwriters, this film follows a family to show a part of Italy’s turbulent history. Accio joins the fascists after he leaves the seminary (it’s not strict enough for him); his brother Manrico, looser and more charismatic, is a communist. Throw in a girl they both fall in love with, and you have yourself a story.

It’s all very entertaining and very nicely done, and I have to admit I initially was very enthusiastic about this movie. Three months later, however, very little lingers, and I don’t quite feel like I now know more about Italy than I did before. The movie doesn’t quite dig deep enough – that said, it does feature some very sympathetic actors, some great scenes, and it’s certainly not a bad way to spend a couple of hours – but maybe watching it at home, and not in the cinema.

Some other films I’ve already written about:

Strongly recommended: No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, I’m Not There and (if you happen to live in Stadskanaal) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Recommended: The Darjeeling Limited, Atonement, Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, Das Leben der Anderen, You, the Living

Interesting but unsatisfying: Lady Chatterley, Persepolis, Sweeney Todd

Not Recommended: Jumper

“Teenagehood”, as director Céline Sciamma so charmingly calls it, is a troubled period, full of doubts, strong opinions, even stronger feelings, full of turmoil and change, even if you don’t have to flee your country or don’t get knocked up. It’s a fascinating period too, one that lends itself very well to both drama and comedy (and even horror). But also one that’s difficult to depict successfully on the screen. The pain of being a teenager might be universal, but the details are all to easy to get wrong.

I wanted to love Persepolis. And even after the backlash started, I thought I’d love Juno. Somehow, I ended up with lukewarm feeling for both, and quite a bit of confusion. Why the ambivalence? Why was it impossibly for me to either love or even hate these two depictions of adolescence?

For Persepolis, I think the answer lies mainly in the structure of the narrative. What’s that Graham Green quote used to such great effect in Donnie Darko? Something about a plan that was “now, in his fifteenth year, crystallized with the pain of puberty”? But in Persepolis, nothing much crystallizes. Marjane the teenager is not that different from Marjane the kid, except maybe that she’s interested in boys and smokes. While the animation of her features changing abruptly one by one is among the funniest sequences in the film, she comes out clean. Almost unaffected. She never even rebels against the saintly parents that provided the history lessons in the first part of the film.

More importantly, Marjane’s story meanders. Oh, of course, all our lives do, punctuated by the obvious crises, with great boring stretches in between. Very few people have lives that automatically fit within a neat three-act structure. But while Persepolis is autobiographical, that doesn’t excuse a lack of momentum – worse, a lack of any narrative tension – in the fiction film made out of Marjane Satrapi’s life.

I don’t mean to be hating. Persepolis is a film worth seeing, with some great sequences and beautiful use of animation. But worthy of the all the accolades it’s been given, worthy of the IFFR audience award? I’m not sure.

Juno’s problems are different, and most seem to revolve around the character of the title character. Some love her, some hate her, and that seems to mostly determine how people feel about the film as a whole. Me? I like Juno. If she’d been at my high school, I probably would have felt a little intimidated by her, and might have tried to emulate her way of speaking and the eclecticism of her taste. Or I might have hated her, I don’t know. In any case, I disagree with the notion that she’s not realistic, too smart and too loquacious for a sixteen year-old: I’ve known quite a few girls who defined themselves by their preferably unusual tastes and unique way of talking. In a way, I was, and maybe still am, one of them. I just was never that good at it, never assured enough.

My quibble isn’t even with the fact that the script is terribly overwritten (“Honest to blog”. Really?), or with the fact that all characters sound the same. No, mostly I can’t bring myself to love Juno because the movie is so untrue to its main character, and I blame this largely on Jason Reitman. How, when your character pretty much defines herself by the horror movies and punk music she loves, do you make such a cutesy movie, with indie/emo songs cover to cover? I mean, I love Belle & Sebastian, I loved them even more when I was 16, but a punk-lover like Juno would immediately dismiss them as twee.

And the movie itself, too, is much too twee. Bleeker’s tic-tac habit (which, as remarked somewhere, I think during the Film Exprience Oscar symposium, was only present to be a joke, and never actually seen), the whole business with the chair, the gallon of Sunny-D…Not only do you not feel the weight of Juno’s pregnancy, the importance of her problems, but she never becomes a real person, let alone a real teenager. I think people complaining about the ‘realism’ of her character are actually put-off by the blanket of preciousness Reitman (and Cody) cover her with.

Again, I don’t mean to be a hater.  I like a lot about Juno – the performances, for one, and some great, funny scenes- and I certainly enjoyed watching it. There were just too many little moments that made me grind my teeth.

Is there then no depiction of adolescent girls I can find myself in, that I can defend? I guess you’ll just have to wait until my discussion of Naissance Des Pieuvres/Water Lilies to find out.

Done. Over. Finished. 34 films in 10 days. I’ll post an overview tomorrow, and hopefully (if my editor allows it) some more in depth pieces in the near future. Further info on the films can be found here.

The Great, at last: Naissance Des Pieuvres/Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma, 2007)

The Surprisingly, and Quite Stunningly, Good: Margot At The Wedding (Noah Baumbach, 2007)

The Fun & Touching: The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007)

The Quiet & Lovely: La Maison Jaune (Amor Hakkar, 2007)

The Should Be a Revered Classic: Der Verlorene (Peter Lorre, 1951)

The Reason I Love Older Movies: Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974), The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970)

The Simply Fun: Estomago (Marcos Jorge, 2007), Un Baiser, S’il Vous Plait (Emmanuel Mouret, 2007)

The Not Joining the Crowd, but not Joining the Dissenters either (aka the Fun, but Not Amazing): Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)

The Fun & Well-Acted, but Somewhat Superficial: Tiramisu (Paula van der Oest, 2008)

The Entertaining Despite Flaws: True Stories (David Byrne, 1986), 3 Days to Forever (Riri Riza, 2007), End of The Line (Gustavo Steinberg, 2007), The King of Ping Pong (Jens Jonsson, 2007)

The Absolutely Nuts, but Impressive and Fun: the 1 take Still Orangutans (Gustavo Spolidoro, 2007)

The Truly Clumsy, but Not Entirely Without Charm: Pure Coolness (Ernest Abdyjaparov, 2007)

The Worth it For the Music and Atmosphere, if not the story: Burned Hearts (Ahmed El Maanouni, 2007)

The Competent & Well-Made, yet not exceptional: Cordero De Dios (Lucía Cedrón, 2008)

The Understandably Disliked, but Quite Enjoyable to Me: Les Amours D’Astrée et de Céladon (Eric Rohmer, 2007)

The Disappointing, but Still Pretty Good: Paranoid Park (Gus van Sant, 2007)

The Odd, but Oddly Charming: Die Stille Vor Bach (Pere Portabella, 2007)

The Demanding, not Necessarily Rewarding but B&W Beautiful: The Man From London (Béla Tarr, 2007)

The Not as Great as Rumored but B&W Beautiful: Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Perronaud, 2007)

The Fascinating Experiment in B&W Animation: Fear(s) of the Dark (various directors, 2007)

The Entertaining but not Quite Satisfying; Uno de los Dos no Puedo Estar Equivocado (Pablo Llorca, 2007)

The Interesting Experience: Wadley (Matias Meyer, 2008)

The Operatically Strange, Somewhat Intersting: The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (Peter Sellars, 1991)

The Interesting Concept that unfortunately peters out: Le Tueur (Cédric Anger, 2007)

The Interesting Concept that doesn’t really add up to anything besides crying men: Men’s Group (Michael Joy, 2008)

The Unfortunately Quite Dull (and Lacking in Film Clips): Un Lugar en el Cine (Alberto Morais, 2007)

The “I wish I liked this more than I did”: Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1971)

The Not-For-Me: Hafez (Abolfazl Jalili, 2007)

The Simply Boring: Marrakesh Inshallah (Steffen Fisker Pierce & Christian Pierce, 2006)

The Highlight of Saturday:

O último filme que assisti no Festival do Rio deste ano foi “Ninféias” (“Naissance des Pieuvres”), um francês bonitinho e, a meu ver, despretensioso, que fala sobre a descoberta da sexualidade na adolescência. Me pareceu desses filmes que fazem as meninas se identificarem, daqueles que se compra em DVD quando se tem 13 anos e que é visto e revisto várias vezes.

Marie é a personagem principal. Ela se encanta por Floriane, uma competidora de nado sincronizado que tem sua mesma idade mas que é a “avançadinha” do grupo. Com uma fama não exatamente das melhores, Floriane não tem amigas. Todas as meninas a excluem, com exceção de Marie. E assim nasce uma amizade que se confunde com um possível algo-a-mais e vou parando por aqui para não contar muito.

Assim como eu falei de “Like a Virgin”, “Ninféias” seria um ótimo filme de Sessão da Tarde, se na Sessão da Tarde fossem exibidos filmes sobre lésbicas.