Céline Sciamma’s second film as writer-director follows Water Lilies, an intriguing drama about the vagaries of teenage female sexuality. Moving from sexual identity to gender identity, this one focuses on Laure, a girl of ten or so who moves into a new apartment complex and becomes, at least to the new friends she meets that summer, Mikael. The story is very simple; what stands out is Sciamma’s very neutral way of telling it. By that I mean that one never gets the feeling that there is a message, despite the potentially fraught subject matter. Despite the presence of Laure’s parents, almost the entire film is from her point of view, which is that of a child.
I realized also, in watching this, how few films, even films about children, primarily show them interacting with other children rather than responding to adults. Both Laure’s interactions with her six-year-old sister (Malonn Lévana, who is both adorable and incredibly natural) and Mikael’s play with the new boys (and one girl) are likely to remind you of the sorts of things that mattered when you were a child.
If you have one of your own (well, one who knows French or will read subtitles), the story is so gently told that you could watch this together and have a very unusual conversation afterward.
IMDB link
viewed 12/21/11 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 12/21/11
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