Water Lilies (2007)

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The French invented the film. And made the first films. Which were just a freak show display: boring short scenes demonstrating the new technique. It was a good policy because a 15 minute movie eats up far more film than a trigger happy photographer in the same amount of time. Once the Americans started doing business with the new tool the French had a hard time following. At the start of the 20th century they are into nationalism and cheap romance, but nothing like the Germans. After World War II they start building a glorious virtual history with easy comedy and some drama. Hollywood builds up large productions? They are going to do the same: make a list of stars and use the power of the state to impose quotas on the consumption of imported cultural goods. The New Wave was an attempt to make something. Well polished movies trying the realism mastered by the Italians some decades ago. But that was over in less than two decades. And even with the state restrictions imported movies are far more interesting even when dubbed.So in the 1990s some independent makers started exploiting shock. Sex. Unconventional. Abusive. Usually without consent. Finally 2000s brought the new step into pedophilia. Label it as art. Sell it to an audience of old males.This is a very slow movie about four youngsters. Sex. No family. No relation with the reality of the constricted Catholic society. While the French can spend their holidays with their parents well into their 40s, there is no adult here. Teens in this fairy tale seem to be able to sleep where they please. Some might argue this is some fairy tale so the reality has nothing to do with it. But even the characters are badly drawn. The chubby who is too scared to undress with the other girls at the pool where she trains is bold enough to enter the boys locker room. And deliver a message in front of everyone. And the young boys barely notice her.The relationships are also sketchy. Although it is very important for the final part, the relationship between the boy and the "cheerleader" is barely shown leaving big gaps.Bad script, bad acting, only a vehicle to deliver to a particular audience a scene of young girls masturbating.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

As ever the English title misses entirely the dark humour of the original, Naissance des pieuvres (Birth of the octopi). This was a typically French film about burgeoning sexuality in three fifteen year old girls living in a new town just outside Paris. One of the girls has not yet developed so is not yet boy bait; another finds her puppy fat puts boys off, and the third is very attractive and has an undeserved "reputation" which she enjoys but can't handle. The story is told against the backdrop of a synchronised swimming club (no under-arm hair allowed) of which the attractive one is captain. The first girl is friends with the second one, but is beginning to find her boring and is attracted to the captain. At first the captain doesn't want to be bothered, but then becomes friendly, using the girl as a lookout for her assignations which are more innocent than they look. The captain is going around with the swimming club hot boy, after whom "puppy fat" lusts. In this adolescent hothouse, the captain tries and fails to lose her virginity, the hot boy left hot, seeks solace with No Two who is more than happy to oblige, while the first girl is left rather confused. End of story. It was a quiet, understated but intense film about real people, with the underwater shots in the civic swimming pool intended to convey the suppressed emotions of the principal characters. Interestingly, there were almost no adults in the film: the girls are all presumably from stable, middle class homes with caring parents, so there is no need to show them.Some American reviewers have complained that the film is only for those who like to watch pubescent girls in skimpy swimming costumes. Whilst that is a plus point of the film, the comment completely overlooks what is probably not too bad a take on life in les banlieues. It certainly seemed more realistic (and was much better presented) than Thirteen.

Score of 7/10 is for the great sound and cinematography in this movie, and for the casting the three girl leads. I also loved the Parisian suburb settings, which seemed as fresh to this casual viewer as they are in all probability dull and claustrophobic to their actual residents. The floaty and unreal feeling of a summer vacation from school is also nicely evoked. These are all high points in a film which is thematically about the confused and confusing desires and adolescent resentments of young girls on the cusp of sexual ripeness.The unfamiliar milieu of synchronised swimming is used well for the first 30 minutes, as the film introduces intense Marie's head-over-heels infatuation at the sight of a swim-suited blonde Floriane, and then follows her attempts to get closer to the object of her desire by joining the girls team. Marie gets to watch them practice from underwater, holding her breath to see their legs thrashing wildly in unison, and this sequence, followed by her gasping and breathless shower scene immediately afterward are both memorable. Unfortunately, the story becomes something of a 'love' triangle, played out between brooding Marie, lissom and desirable Floriane, and jejune Anne, who is the most introspective but curiously the most interesting character. Good but never exceptional acting from all three young actresses makes the film much more engaging than it has any right to be, as do the scenes of adolescent ennui around the Parisian estate where the girls all live. But the sum of all this is ultimately disappointing and like a few of the previous contributors, I detected in proceedings the hand of the writer / director, reaching for profundity. In telling her story, Sciamma reduces the boys to casual ciphers, inexplicably under-uses all the other girls in the swimming team, and sadly, when Marie breaks her (prodigious) silences, we hear the cynical words of an adult, not those of a confused and inexperienced adolescent.But I would recommend a watch, I just can't promise that your life will be different for doing so.

From the initial frame to the very last one, this film bring us into the world of puberty at the rhythm of a ballet. The elegance of the camera moves around one of today's most controversial subjects, and it pictures the lives of two young teenagers in a public swimming pool. Three 15 yo girls living in the suburb of Cergy-Pontoise. A beautiful Floriane with a great swimming talent, Marie and an overweight friend named Marie, who has a crash for male swimmer. Fear and desires of three teenagers in a wonderful painting of synchronized swimming.The camera moves around the subjects as a voyeur, or a floating ghost. It enters the locker room, the swimming pool, the showers and the house parties.