Film Reviews

Water Lillies

• Rating:
• Director: Celine Sciamma.
• Starring: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachere, Adele Haenel, Warren Jacquin.
• Details: France 85mins (16).

During a summer holiday in a Paris suburb, life is going to change for three fifteen-year-old girls forever. Marie (Acquart) is in love with Floriane (Haenel) and hangs around the swimming pool where Floriane, a self-confessed slut, is captain of the synchronised swimming team. Floriane flirts constantly with the hunky Francois (Jacquin), the boy who Marie's best friend Anne (Blachere) is determined to lose her virginity to. These four will play an important part in each other's lives in this coming-of-age drama. Contrary to popular opinion, I have never been a fifteen-year-old French lesbian living in a Paris suburb and therefore was never going to fully understand Marie, whose eyes the majority of this downbeat drama is seen through. However, I'm going to venture that fifteen-year-old French lesbians living in Parisian suburbs won't fully understand her either. Apart from her attraction toobsession with Florianne, there's not a whole lot to Marie - we're not allowed to get inside her and feel what she's feeling. This would be okay if we're not supposed to, but Celine Sciamma wants us to; she spends too much screen time with her to suggest otherwise. Floriane and Anne, on the other hand, despite their lesser screen time, are more rounded. Floriane, even though she swears blind that she's having sex left, right and centre, is in fact a virgin and has a quiet malaise about her, while Anne, a large girl, is all too conscious of her body but doesn't let that stop her in her ultimate plan of landing Francois. Sciamma's high points include the low-key performances and her little touches that reawaken those teenage memories that still ring true today - the fear of sweat peeking through a new top at a party, that kissing smudges lipstick and the awkward sexual advances.

Review by Gavin Burke