Water Lilies
As the Cannes Film Festival rages on, I thought I'd write about a movie that made the official selection last year and was released in the UK a couple of months ago and just about now in the US : Water Lilies by Céline Sciamma. I'll leave it to Steven Jenkins to leave it to the French:
"Leave it to the French to eschew the clichés of American “coming of age” dramedies, preferring instead to chart their tweens’ trials and triumphs through uniquely Gallic “age of possibilities” films, highlighted by such disparate studies as François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl and Pascale Ferran’s genre-defining The Age of Possibilities. To this list we must add Céline Sciamma’s astonishingly assured first feature, focusing on three schoolgirls of varying experience and élan who explore the alternately liberating and perilous possibilities inherent to their youth, burgeoning sexuality and fascination with synchronized swimming. Imagine a pubescent Esther Williams shipped overseas to a public school in the suburbs outside Paris, and you’ll have some idea of the alluring blend of teenage athleticism and ennui embodied by Marie (preternaturally perceptive lovestruck loner), Anne (zaftig party-crashing eccentric) and Floriane (sultry swim team tease), the titular water lilies who dive deep into the chilly waters of adolescence with only nose plugs, training bras and each other’s kisses and confessions for protection." —Stolen from the San Francisco International Film Festival
It's a splendid movie, fully realized by its soundtrack, produced by Para One.
