W@TER L!LL!ES 8

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Trueform7
November 09, 2009

The lives and desires of three 15-year-old Parisian girls are intertwined in this French drama about sexual and emotional awakening, set in and around a local swimming pool
Few sports are as difficult to take seriously as synchronised swimming, so for a film to use it as a metaphor for adolescence might seem risky. Nevertheless, Water Lilies pulls it off with considerable style, exploring the churning tensions which lurk just beneath the elegant surface of female teenage life.

The story is set during summer, and based around a municipal swimming pool in the Paris suburb of Cergy, where the local synchronised swimming team is in training for the next regional competition. Watching the training sessions is Marie (Pauline Acquart), a quiet and reserved girl who's soon asking if she can help out with the team. Her interest has less to do with her liking the sport and more about being closer to Florianne (Adele Haenel), a gorgeous blonde swimmer disliked by most of the girls on the team, but who knows how to use her looks on boys.

Marie and Florianne drift into contact accidentally at first, with Florianne using her as a cover for various assignations with boys. While Marie is happy to receive even this kind of off-handed treatment, the relationship between them gradually deepens into something more complex. At the same time, Marie's friendship with the chubby but confidant Anne (Louise Blachère) is going through a rocky patch, mainly because Anne has a major crush on male swimmer Francois (Warren Jacquin), but he's only interested in pursuing Florianne.

As the story progresses, the relationships between the three girls go through various shifts and changes, and writer-director Sciamma nails the intensity and casual cruelty of teenage life.

One of the cleverest devices she uses is to give the film an almost timeless edge - there are no mobile phones and no references to pop culture, and Sciamma creates a claustrophobic atmosphere by ensuring that this is a world almost entirely without grown-ups. The girls' parents are referred to but never appear onscreen. While this stylistic trick takes a little getting used to, it suggests the film's protagonists exist in an intimate and private universe all of their own.

More than anything else, Water Lilies is a story of the awkward pain of unrequited love and it succeeds in placing us in the character's heads to an extent that's almost breathtaking.

Each of the young actresses does a fantastic job in creating their character, but it's Acquart as Marie who has the hardest job. Bearing a strong resemblance to a teenage Scarlett Johansson, Acquart has to express almost all of her desire for Florianne through looks and behaviour rather than dialogue, leading to sequences such as the one at a disco, where her desire to finally kiss Florianne is so brilliantly portrayed it's almost painful to watch.

Matching the gorgeous photography with a synth-led, almost ambient soundtrack, there are echoes of Sofia Coppola's directorial style, but the film easily creates an identity all of its own, sketching out its universe in bold strokes, and making a world that anyone who's ever experienced a teenage crush will be able to relate to. Warm, wise and achingly sexy, it's an impressively crafted debut, and Sciamma has singled herself out as a filmmaker who'll be worth keeping an eye on.

Category: Film & Animation

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