Water Lilies

[fish]

Very.

So's this, but perhaps a tad more lustful.

[Ian]

Lust makes the world go round.

[DMt.]

So I finally got to watch this, streamed from some Japanese blog at lo-res and minus subtitles, but it was still very good.

A nice descriptor for Pauline/Marie might be 'saturnine'.

[snaps]

So I finally got to watch this, streamed from some Japanese blog at lo-res and minus subtitles, but it was still very good.

A nice descriptor for Pauline/Marie might be 'saturnine'.

I watched it so many times, that when I see it again, I tend to leave subtitles off. I don't need them to follow the story, although my French is lousy anyway ''gross-debutante''. I find they distract from the visuals and music . Much of the brilliance of the film is in the body language anyway. But in addition, as with so-many subtitled films there are some poor fits of script to subtitle. Towards the very end, I think some of the last words spoken by Floriane, I believe the expression is ''Marche du temps'' i.e. ''Time Marches On'' which is much more haughty and dismissive of Marie, than the weak subtitle of ''I'd better get back''.

Can't you get a copy of the DVD prescribed to you on the National Health? as an essential component in your LTROI-forum withdrawal program? They give out vouchers for fitness clubs and suchlike these days. It is clearly therapeutic and in the best interests of your mental health. Katka and I endlessly watch the intro section, with the end music and a changing, dynamic, dissolving tiled version of the scenes. It is quite mesmerising, and guaranteed to send you off to a good night's sleep. I confess I sometimes load the DVD if I'm having rough night, and put the intro on loop while I drink a hot chococolate.

Worth it just for that

[DMt.]

Never mind all that, tell me more about the hot chococolate...

[snaps]

Never mind all that, tell me more about the hot chococolate...

[quote="DMt."]

Yeh. I'm just an airhead.

bye Dave.

[DMt.]

I get the impression I may have jumped too hard on a very minor comic opportunity, there, and am sorry if I caused any offence.

I got hold of a subtitles file but it seems a very poor translation, there's lots missing I think.

Scenes that linger would definitely have to include Marie kissing the other side of Floriane's lipstick mark on her window.

[Ian]

Can't you get it on eBay, Dave?

[snaps]

I get the impression I may have jumped too hard on a very minor comic opportunity, there, and am sorry if I caused any offence.

No probs, just feeling a bit fractious atm.

Grrrrrr

[DMt.]

The three girls' performances continue to astonish - the month spent building trust and defining the characters was obviously a good call. L'Acquart owns the whole movie, for me, but I'm pretty sure that's the intended result.

Her coltish, awkward beauty is just stunning, especially combined with a dignity and reserve that only deserts her a little bit, even in the very cruel dancefloor scene. Yet the character is also tough enough to pursue Floriane, to deflower her with her fingers, to tell her what to do with the 'minder' role she has been assigned, and to rebuke Anne for her shoplifting and general daftness.

I loved the spitting-water thing, Anne's visit and rapprochement with Marie was very tender, and the final sequence in the pool was telling, too - the only time Floriane and Marie got near this easy intimacy was the necklace swap.

People ask me what I've been up to recently, and when I say 'watching two movies about young girls falling in love with each other' they go, "'Oh, really?", and I say 'yes, they're both very sweet movies, not porny at all'...

[snaps]

You definitely need your own copy so you can place on pause, rewind etc, to catch all the subtleties of the film. It took me a few viewings to catch that the importance of the ''volta'' moment, in which Floriane places her old necklace around Marie. The new necklace ''Look what he bought me'' is in fact the same that Ann stole and presented to Francois. The one made from Peau d'Âne (the horse <actually a donkey> that shits diamonds) which is also a French fable of incest. Marie would no doubt identify with the unfulfilled character 'Donkeyskin'.

Celine Sciamma completed the equivalent of a MA in French literature before completing the Script-writers course at FEMIS, the French National Film School. She would be well-versed in weaving in the subtlety of myths and folk-lore into the story.

The necklace presentation is one of a number of mirror-moments, e.g. other ones being Floriane at the washstand at the end of the film, mirroring her first encounter with Marie, at the original water polo jocks + synchronised swimmer girls party. Also the presentation mirrors Floriane presenting Marie with the swimming medal on the coach home. Marie who is not even a member of the swimming team. It is a way for Floriane to show her contempt for the other girls in the team, anyone of whom would have been a more deserving recipient.

I call it, the necklace swap, a ''volta'' moment because Floriane's cynicism has infected Marie. Marie recognises the necklace. She (Floriane) actually says (I think it is a St Christopher medallion, the Christ carrier over troubled water, hint hint swimming) 'I don't believe in this anymore, do you?' Marie says 'Non' but Floriane decorates her with it anyway, regardless. I don't think Marie is 'persuaded' but has become, at this point, degraded to the point of agreeing to anything, and be absorbed in her own infection.

Relegious symbolism is very important in the film. Ann crosses herself before taking her kiddy troop out to compete. She also, in a bizarre ritual, buries her own bra outside Francois apartment. The St Christopher motif is revisited at the end of the film, being compounded with a St John motif of being baptised, and thereby being reborn in the final scene.

WL is (like FA) naturalistic rather than realistic. Given the time-set of 2007, extra-ordinary there are no parents, no computers, no mobile phones, quite anachronistic. Sciamma based the film on her own experience of growing up gay in Cergy-Pontoise, a kind of 'Milton Keynes / Blackeberg' invented community with no real heart. I think we get absorbed in the story, and by-pass the oddities.

Just my two cents worth.

[DMt.]

A good deal more than 2c, Mlle Snappia.

I like 'mirror-moments', yes; makes me think of Marie shyly but firmly moving in on Floriane's shower, for some reason that felt important.

[fish]

Definitely much more than 2 cents.

The bra burying scene continues to puzzle me but I guess that too might become clear if I watch it a few more times.
Like, starting in a few minutes.

[Ian]

People ask me what I've been up to recently, and when I say 'watching two movies about young girls falling in love with each other' they go, "'Oh, really?", and I say 'yes, they're both very sweet movies, not porny at all'...

I tend to just keep my mouth shut.

[katka]

People ask me what I've been up to recently, and when I say 'watching two movies about young girls falling in love with each other' they go, "'Oh, really?", and I say 'yes, they're both very sweet movies, not porny at all'...

I tend to just keep my mouth shut.

Me too
it's better than the face of their reactions, or explain why this is so and persuade them that it is for me nothing special ( While it is , but not in the sense of what they could think of , then I could be with them in ''a bad light'' than I want to be. )