Celine Sciamma – Bitch Flicks

Top 10 ‘Bitch Flicks’ Articles Written in 2017

Here are our top 10 most popular articles written in 2017.

10) Queen of Katwe Is a Gorgeous Inspiring Look at a Young Black Life Fully Realized by Candice Frederick

“Yes, it’s wholesome and finishes on a heartwarming high like many other cherished Disney stories. But at its core lies a story of redemption, cultural pride, feminism, and economics — elements of a young life contending with extraordinary challenges. […]

“Queen of Katwe is a mesmerizing story of a life fully realized, a life that’s often overlooked and not given a chance. Its young cast, led by Nalwanga’s nuanced performance, help illuminate layers of humanity resting deep in the ‘slums’ of Uganda, exhibiting talent well beyond their years. Meanwhile, Oyelowo and Nyong’o’s performances temper the film with heart-wrenching emotion. And Mira Nair’s touching portrait of Katwe’s inspiring young queen with a dream is one to remember.”

9) Céline Sciamma’s Films (Girlhood, Tomboy, and Water Lilies) Capture the Complexities of Adolescence by Charline Jao

“French director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma of Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood has gained critical acclaim for her portrayals of adolescence and coming-of-age, particularly on themes of gender and sexuality. Sciamma’s movies are intimate character studies, punctuated with dancing, tiny details embedded in body language, and a serious respect for younger viewers. For all the cringe-worthy or mediocre child acting that permeates film, Sciamma has a remarkable ability to draw out nuanced and organic performances in her works, oftentimes from non-actors.

“[…] The adolescent or teenager sits on the threshold of adulthood by sitting between child and adult, figuring out their rites of passage and space within society. This undefined, yet crucial space is an uncomfortable one and Sciamma’s films excel because they embrace the chaotic ambiguity of youthful liminality.”

8) Hush: A Resourceful Heroine with Disabilities for the Horror Genre by Cassandra A. Clarke

“What’s brilliant about Hush, written by Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel (who stars as the lead), is it pushes the envelope of the survivor’s tale further through its main character, Madison ‘Maddie’ Young: a woman who is deaf, mute, and lives alone in a rural area. In addition to featuring a female protagonist with disabilities, Hush crafts a home-invasion story that isn’t about her ‘problems’ or obstacles or the attacker at all, but rather it focuses on the tactful solutions she chooses along the way.

“…Its depiction of Maddie as a full, engaging character who fends for herself and thrives alone is an asset to adding more characters with disabilities in films, especially horror, as not victims but stars.”

7) Gilmore Girls: Rory Gilmore Is an Entitled Millennial by Scarlett Harris

“That’s because she’s never had to hustle; everything has been handed to her. She only watched her mother struggle to raise her on her own, and even then it’s established that Lorelai went to great pains not to expose Rory to her struggles. […]

“To be fair, Rory is largely a product of her upbringing. Until the events of Gilmore Girls as we know it — Lorelai’s reconciliation with her rich parents so Rory can go to an expensive private school and then Yale — Rory was raised by an independent, struggling, small-town single mom. Whatever life lessons she learned there were swiftly erased by the ensuing plot developments: her rich grandparents and then her rich father paying for her education and European holidays, her rent-free accommodations, and breaks in school and work to ‘find herself’ similarly bankrolled by Richard (Edward Herrmann), Emily (Kelly Bishop), and Logan (Matt Czuchry). […]

“Despite her flaws, I relate to Rory because she displays all my — and my generation’s — worst characteristics.”

6) The Love That’s Really Real: American Psycho as Romantic Comedy by Caroline Madden

“A 2006 YouTube video created a parody trailer envisioning American Psycho (2000) as romantic comedy. While the stark juxtapositions between the classic boy-meets-girl formula and a horrifying portrait of a serial murder are amusing, the sentiments between them are not so far-fetched. Although primarily a horror film, American Psycho has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.

“Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a concoction of the romantic comedy and drama archetype of ‘the bad boy.'”

5) The Revenant Should Be Left in the River to Drown by Celey Schumer

“Don’t believe the hype. You have been conned. The Revenant is a terrible film. […]

“This white-man-against-all-odds tale of revenge has been told so many times, even Michael Bay is probably like, “Eh, can’t we find something more original?” […]

“The second galling part of the film is its abhorrent treatment of Native peoples. It is at best mediocre, at worst condescending, and at all times unremarkable lazy recycled fodder. Almost every time Hugh has an interaction with a Native American person, they meet with disaster. Honestly, Chief Elk Dog (Duane Howard) and his men are the only ones operating with their own agency and justice in their quest to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk’o). But we hardly see them and are left to infer all of this information, until of course Hugh the White Man comes to Powaqa’s rescue. […]

“Can we see this whole movie from the Arikara tribe’s perspective? From Powaqa’s perspective? That would be an actual game changer.”

4) The Eyes of My Mother Is a Gorgeous Coming-of-Age Horror You’re Not Likely to Forget by Candice Frederick

“Oh, how I love this age we’re living in in which women characters on the big and small screens are allowed to be inappropriate, messy, b**chy, and sexual. It just further illuminates the myriad complexities women embody, painting a more thorough profile of inclusive feminism. But even while Hollywood has been consistently pushing these boundaries in more recent years, few films have explored morbid sensuality through the gaze of a woman better than writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother. […]

“…Pesce explores the nature of human instinct and arrested development in a way that is uncomfortable to watch yet immersive just the same.”

3) 20 Years of The Craft: Why We Needed More of Rochelle by Ashlee Blackwell

“I was flustered and empathetic to a character that was virtually invisible to an entire school population outside of her small coven of comrades, unless to be the unchecked target of racist scorn. This made her experience even that more isolating in contrast to her white female counterparts who, if they did get that brief seat at the table, were promptly dismissed for their class, burn scars, and not performing for the teenage ‘good ‘ol boys’ club. The most glaring difference; Rochelle was never going to get that seat. […]

“The movie for many sparked the thirst to explore the deep intersections of the weirdo. Rochelle was the social outcast with the other handful of social outcasts of St. Bernard Academy, sure. But how do we cinematize the Black girl outcast teenager that many of us felt like? That just so happens to be a practicing witch?

“Much of what can be read of Rochelle relies heavily on those of us whom she meant so much to. What kinds of conversations did young Black girls have back in 1996 and are having now about the importance of her presence in a film that at least, didn’t blend her in colorblind rhetoric? How did many of us find camaraderie, empathy, and imagination in Rochelle’s broader, unseen story?”

2) Caitlin Snow: It’s Time to Give The Flash’s Overlooked Heroine Her Due by Lacy Baugher

“Plus, the decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place.

“Caitlin’s journey – whether she ultimately keeps her powers or not – should be about figuring where she fits within Team Flash, within her family, and within her own idea of herself. We have seen Caitlin unnerved by the darkness inside her. She has issues with her mother and even occasionally with members of her own team. She’s certainly lost enough to want to burn the world down twice over. But she’s never really gotten the chance to deal with any of those issues on-screen in a significant way. This Killer Frost arc offers a perfect opportunity for her to finally do so. Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.”

1) Too Feminine, Too Pretty, and the Gendered Bias in the Critique of Sofia Coppola’s Films by Claire White

“However, while being one of the most discussed women directors, it is hard to think of a female director who is under as much scrutiny as Sofia Coppola. This is especially true when it comes to her signature pretty and feminine filmic style.

“When it comes to the critique of Sofia Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. …Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. As explored in Rosalind Galt’s book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, prettiness in film is not exclusively female or feminine, and is thus unfair to use as a critique against women directors’ films. […]

“There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. ‘Pretty’ is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.”

‘Girlhood’: Observed But Not Seen

‘Girlhood’ starts on a peak note: a slow-motion scene of what looks like Black men playing American tackle football on a field at night, wearing helmets, shoulder pads and mouth guards, so we don’t realize–until we notice the players’ breasts under their uniforms–that they are all girls.

This repost by staff writer Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

When Boyhood was making its victory lap through critics’ circles and award ceremonies, I wasn’t the only person who thought, “I want a film called Girlhood.” We all got our wish near the beginning of this year when the out writer-director of Water Lilies and Tomboy, Céline Sciamma, gave us the art house US release Girlhood about a French, Black teenager, Marieme (Karidja Touré). The English title isn’t an exact translation of the original French Bande de Filles (“Group of Girls”) which was in production long before Boyhood was released–and perhaps even before that film was called Boyhood: the original title was 12 Years. Still, I was eager to see Sciamma’s film–until I read about its “bleak” ending and some talk from women of color that they found the writer-director’s take on Marieme’s life lacking. When the film played at my local art house as a revival months after its first run, I went to see it. I’m glad I did, but now I understand both reactions: the effusive praise and the cringing.

Girlhood starts on a peak note: a slow-motion scene of what looks like Black men playing American tackle football on a field at night, wearing helmets, shoulder pads and mouth guards, so we don’t realize–until we notice the players’ breasts under their uniforms–that they are all girls. Marieme and the rest of the team all live in the same neighborhood so after the game they walk home together with each saying “Good night” to the rest as she leaves the group to go home. Marieme is the only one left at the end, making her way up to her family’s apartment, where we see that she and her sister, who is a couple of years younger than she is, (Marieme is 15 or 16 at the beginning of the film) are the ones raising their much younger sister, cooking her meals and doing the dishes while their mother works. Their older brother is a physically abusive, petty dictator who kicks Marieme out of the living room when he comes home, so he can have the computer soccer game she was playing to himself.

Marieme finds out that she is flunking out of school and an unsympathetic counselor won’t listen to her excuses, or allow her to redeem herself. Dejected, she leaves, then just outside the school meets up with a group of three girls about her age, also not attending classes, who invite her to go to Paris with them (the film seems to mostly take place in the Parisian suburbs). At first she turns them down but when she notices the attention they receive from a group of local boys (including a friend of her brother’s she’s attracted to) she decides to go to Paris with the other girls after all.

In the city the girls unapologetically take up space, whether blasting music and teaching each other dance routines in a crowded metro car (with the white passengers turning their backs on them, pretending not to notice) or shaming and shoving a white clothing store clerk who profiles them. Marieme is entranced and becomes a permanent part of the group. She exchanges her long braids for the long straight weave/wig similar to that of the leader of the group Lady (Assa Sylla) and intimidates one of her former football teammates into giving her money that the group pool into a night in a motel room (with extra for food and booze). While she’s partying with her friends her brother calls, but Lady, while taking a bath, instructs her not to answer. She tells Marieme, “You do what you want.” When Marieme repeats the words back to Lady, she says she should look in her bag for a gift, a necklace that spells out “Vic.” “As in ‘victory,'” Lady tells her. We later find out “Lady” isn’t her real name either: it’s “Sophie.”

In another highlight the girls lip sync to “Diamonds” (the Sia Furler song sung by Rihanna) while in the room, wearing the new dresses they’ve shoplifted, dancing (shot stunningly by cinematographer Crystel Fournier) like they are in their own music video. But the high life never lasts–afterward when Marieme, now known as “Vic” returns to the apartment her brother chokes her, telling her to never ignore his calls again.

By this time Vic’s nearly silent mother knows that she is out of school and has arranged for her to join her at her job cleaning hotel rooms. We see the defeated expression on Vic’s face as she scrubs a bathroom sink but aren’t prepared when, at the end of the shift, Vic grabs the supervisor’s hand, as in a handshake but squeezes and twists it until the supervisor agrees to tell her mother that she doesn’t have a position for Vic after all.

We’re used to seeing teenaged protagonists, especially those who suffer physical abuse at home, turn to petty crime and violence in film, but they’re rarely girls: the only other unapologetically violent, girl-protagonist that comes readily to mind is Reese Witherspoon’s Vanessa in 1996’s Freeway. We see Lady and the others in the group call out insults to other groups of Black girls which sometimes leads to nothing and sometimes culminates in scheduled fights (complete with a crowd of spectators filming the event with their phones). One of these fights leads to a humiliating defeat for Lady and the chance for Vic to avenge it. In Vic’s fight, she not only takes off the other girl’s shirt, as the girl did to Lady, she takes out her switchblade and cuts off the girl’s bra as well. When she comes home, her brother, who apparently saw the fight on YouTube, instead of hitting her (as he usually does when he calls her into a room) invites her to play computer soccer with him.

When Vic sees her younger sister with a group of other girls her age robbing a woman’s purse she ‘s upset. On the train ride home she implies she too will swear off stealing and fighting–only to find her brother waiting for her in the apartment with a beat-down, angry that she’s had sex with his friend (this boyfriend is one of the only Black men or boys in the film who is presented as more than a cardboard thug).

Sciamma is at her best when the girls are alone together (including an early funny scene between Marieme and her slightly younger sister) and also as in her earlier films when her characters seem to be exploring their sexual orientation and gender expression. Unlike every other woman or girl character in a movie, when Vic is in a dress and high heels it’s only until she can change into sweats and sneakers. At one point she wears her hair in short cornrows and binds her breasts, to protect herself as a woman alone on the street, but she continues to wear her “disguise” when she is at home as well. The scenes when she talks to Lady in the bathtub as well as a later dance with a sex worker/roommate have a sexual tension to them that Vic’s scenes with her boyfriend (even as she, just before they have sex together for the first time, objectifies his bare ass) don’t equal.

But during other scenes I felt Sciamma was observing these girls as a sociologist or tourist might, as opposed to truly seeing and understanding them or giving their scenes the same nuance the white male director of Our Song gave to the girls of color who were his main characters. The sometimes careless cinematography doesn’t help; although Touré is photographed beautifully in most of the first part of the film (she’s never lovelier than when, in the presence of the boy she likes, she looks down and smiles) in some latter parts she’s poorly lit (a persistent problem of white photographers and cinematographers with dark skinned actresses/subjects), so we can’t clearly make out her features.

Other reviews made me dread a downer ending. Needlessly degrading or deeming “hopeless” a woman or girl character is one of the biggest clichés writers, especially male ones, have at their disposal and I’m not the only woman who is sick of it. But the last shot of Vic isn’t any more hopeless than the one of another, very famous teenaged protagonist in French film who had also gotten into a lot of trouble, Antoine Doinel in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. And unlike him, Vic wears a look of determination on her face as she walks purposefully away from us.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AabCFCREVbQ” iv_load_policy=”3″]

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks has appeared in The Toast, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

‘Ackee & Saltfish’: There Are Other Narratives to Explore

We need new filmmakers like Cecile Emeke to break new ground with digital media. Smash the stranglehold of white filmmakers being the only ones telling Black stories that often dredge up old stereotypes and tired narratives. We need the specificity of Emeke’s vision. And dammit, I need more Rachel and Olivia in my life.

“It would be nice to have a story where it doesn’t always have to relate around men, or drug dealer boyfriend, babymama drama, (gun crime), or my Daddy’s gone. It doesn’t have to be like that. There are other narratives you know.”

–Michelle Tiwo (Olivia in Cecile Emeke’s Ackee and Saltfish)

I happened to be on Twitter the day Ava DuVernay hosted her 12-hour Rebel-A-Thon social media conversation with 42 Black filmmakers on May 27. With the hashtag #Array, various screenwriters, directors, and producers answered questions from fans and interacted with one another. I gave a shout-out online with my support, but also stated that I wanted to see more underrepresented filmmakers outside of the U.S.

Another Twitter user following the hashtag dropped filmmaker Cecile Emeke into my mentions. I quickly went to YouTube and discovered her humorous comedic web series Ackee & Saltfish.

Cecile Emeke, creator/writer/director of "Ackee and Saltfish" and "Strolling" — Cecile Emeke, creator/writer/director of *Ackee & Saltfish* and *Strolling*

Completely crowd-funded, Cecile Emeke has created quite an impression with her work. She is redefining what Black female writer/directors can bring to the table. And this is critical, especially from a Black European female. Just like Black women in the U.S., it is hella rare for Black women in Europe to bring their voices to the table. The excitement I have for Amma Asante and the success of her critically underrated (and underplayed) Belle only makes me hunger for stories about Black women across the pond. Emeke herself has some strong words about being tired of white filmmakers telling Black stories with a white gaze. This familiar complaint is even more searing especially with the release of Girlhood by French filmmaker Céline Sciamma. (You can read what Emeke has to say about that here.)

Ackee & Saltfish is a very important piece of work that should be signal boosted with viewership and financial support immediately. It has an authentic, playful, low-key coolness that I want to see more of. The two lead characters in the series, Michelle Tiwo (Olivia) and Vanessa Babirye (Rachel), are not contrived stereotypes, and are not dealing with the usual negative tropes ascribed to Black female characters (refer again to Michelle Tiwo’s words I quote at the beginning of this piece). They are carefree Black women just living their life.

Michelle Tiwo (Olivia) and Vanessa Babirye (Rachel) having a typical chat that revels in sharp verbal zingers.

Let me stress this: we hardly ever see Black women just dealing with themselves and their friendships without contrived outside interference. Every webisode centers on Olivia and Rachel just chilling within their friendship. Some viewers may mistake this for being a plot-less series (or may be reminded of the old American comedy Seinfeld being a show about “nothing”). The show hinges on subtle character-based humor. Olivia and Rachel are the plot. The conflict in Ackee & Saltfish is the differences in how Olivia and Rachel interact with one another. Olivia is the more assertive, outspoken realist, whereas Rachel is the more laid-back and soft-spoken one, often looking at her friend Olivia with an expression of incredulous wonder at the things she says. The friendship feels real to me, and the way Emeke films the series, the viewer may often feel like the third person in the room simply hanging out and listening to the two banter about Lauryn Hill tickets, bread backs, how one’s breath smells, or why Solange Knowles should adopt Olivia. The easy back and forth between the two actors may have the feel of improv, but their lines are scripted by Emeke.

Rachel's boyfriend prepared a dish of Ackee without Saltfish and Olivia has come undone over it. — Rachel’s boyfriend prepared a dish of Ackee without Saltfish and Olivia has come undone over it.

My favorite episode is about Olivia and Rachel hanging inside a carpet store because it’s raining and they don’t want to get wet. While trying to stay dry they have to contend with a faceless store owner who keeps pestering them with “Excuse me!” when he sees they are not there to buy carpet. Eventually they hear music playing in the store, and they start dancing, doing moves I’ve done myself (like The Butterfly). It’s silly and reminds me of the random moments I’ve had with my friends.

Olivia thinks she's the next Serena Williams. Rachel is not impressed. — Olivia thinks she’s the next Serena Williams. Rachel is not impressed.

Thus far, all the episodes (including the original short film) only show Olivia and Rachel interacting with each other. I’m hoping that as Emeke’s fan base grows, and she can secure more funding to make more episodes, that she will eventually allow us to see these two besties engage with other characters. I want the web series to be picked up and turned into a TV series with longer episodes. There are six episodes available to watch online. There is also a 10-minute “support” video where Emeke and her actors talk about the work they’re doing while encouraging viewers to give financial support with donations so they can create more content. (I have done that!)

The other project Emeke has in her creative arsenal is the intriguing documentary series called Strolling in the U.K., and Flâner in France. Emeke films young Black people strolling in their neighborhoods as they talk about what it’s like living in their respective spaces. Over nine episodes (about 10 minutes each) participants discuss race, class, gentrification, colorism, colonial legacies, Afrofuturism, what it means to be a Black British person, or a Black French person (or British Jamaican, or British Nigerian), Black mental health, sexuality, sexism, misogyny and the list goes on. The power of this documentary series for someone like me, a Black American, is the decentering of African Americans as the dominating cultural force in the African diaspora. I can listen to new Black voices who share the same transatlantic African history, but who have a differing perspective on how the African diaspora should connect based on where their ancestors landed after enslavement. They are echoing my Twitter call to hear from underrepresented voices from across the pond. Strolling is a Black cultural call and response, a digital “How your people doin’ over there Fam?” and they answer “Living like this, Sis.”

Strolling in the U.K. with young Black Brits in the Strolling documentary series. — Strolling in the U.K. with young Black Brits in the *Strolling* documentary series.

In Flâner, Emeke allows young Black French voices to be heard speaking their own truth. — In *Flaner*, Emeke allows young Black French voices to be heard speaking their own truth.

Emeke would like to take the Strolling series to other places outside of Europe, and I am here for it. How amazing it would be if she were able to travel to Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia, Indonesia or parts of Canada to record unique voices with unique perspectives? People of African descent are everywhere, blended into other cultures with rich stories to tell the rest of the world. The Strolling series is also an opportunity for White and non-Black people of color to understand that there is not one monolithic “Black” experience. Thank goodness. That would be boring.

Friendship goals. Rachel and Olivia. More please.

P.S. I know you were wondering, here it is:

Ackee and Saltfish the dish. Google the recipe and enjoy.

Lisa Bolekaja co-hosts Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room, and her latest speculative short story “Three Voices” can be read in Uncanny Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja

‘Girlhood’: Observed But Not Seen

When Boyhood was making its victory lap through critics’ circles and award ceremonies, I wasn’t the only person who thought, “I want a film called Girlhood.” We all got our wish near the beginning of this year when the out, writer-director of Water Lilies and Tomboy, Céline Sciamma, gave us the art house US release Girlhood about a French, Black teenager, Marieme (Karidja Touré). The English title isn’t an exact translation of the original French Bande de Filles (“Group of Girls”) which was in production long before Boyhood was released–and perhaps even before that film was called Boyhood: the original title was 12 Years. Still, I was eager to see Sciamma’s film–until I read about its “bleak” ending and some talk from women of color that they found the writer-director’s take on Marieme’s life lacking. When the film played at my local art house as a revival months after its first run, I went to see it. I’m glad I did, but now I understand both reactions: the effusive praise and the cringing.

GirlhoodDiamonds — The girls dance and lip sync to “Diamonds”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AabCFCREVbQ” iv_load_policy=”3″]

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

Athena Film Festival: Jodie Foster Reflects on Need for Female Directors by Hilary Lewis at The Hollywood Reporter

Festival Encourages Women in Film to ‘Wear the Pants’ by Stuart Miller at The Wall Street Journal

Interview: ‘Girlhood’ Director Celine Sciamma on Race, Gender & the Universality of the Story by Zeba Blay at Shadow and Act

5 Fabulous Feminist Films from Sundance by Natalie Wilson at Ms. blog

“Fresh Off the Boat,” Margaret Cho & the Asian American TV Family by Amy Lam at Bitch Media

HBO Gives Greenlight to Issa Rae Comedy ‘Insecure’ by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

Film Independent Directors Close-Ups: Ava DuVernay by Jana Monji at RogerEbert.com

The Psychology of Inspirational Women: The Walking Dead’s Michonne And Carol by Dr. Janina Scarlet at The Mary Sue

That Time Sleater-Kinney Hung Out With “Broad City.” by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

100 Years Later, What’s The Legacy Of ‘Birth Of A Nation’? at NPR

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Movie Makers from the Margins: Celine Sciamma

Written by Erin Fenner

French filmmaker, Celine Sciamma, brings you uncomfortably close to the lives of adolescents.

She does this intentionally, but not in a voyeuristic way that so often comes along with any Hollywood film. Instead, her proximity to her characters creates a level of intense intimacy. Even when her characters are dealing with issues like sexuality, her work doesn’t feel sexy, but nerve-wracking, like being a teenager does.

In her first feature-length film, Water Lilies¸ we follow the experiences of three girls who are on a synchronized swimming team together. We see their stories through their eyes only – rarely even glimpsing a character who is older than 18.

The girls are all trying to understand how sex and desire fit into their lives. Marie (Pauline Acquart), who we follow most closely, longs for Floriane (Adele Haenel). Anne (Louise Blachere) longs for Francois (Warren Jacquin). Floriane seems fixated more on the functioning of her own desire and how it can connect her to many people, rather than any one individual.

Louise Blachere, Pauline Acquart and Adele Haenel in Water Lilies

We see them clumsily sort out their first interactions with their own desire and the desire of others. While Floriane flirts with Marie, she is not monogamous in her affection. And this functions as a regular torture for Marie, who spends much of her time helping Floriane meet with boys. Francois walks in on Anne while she is completely naked, and this moment catalyzes Anne’s burgeoning infatuation with Francois.

In her second film, Tomboy, we meet Laure (Zoe Heran) who expresses hirself as a boy. While the film doesn’t explore whether Laure identifies as a boy, it does sift through the complications that come with assigned gender. It also touches on how we make assumptions about a person’s identity and how antagonistic adults, in particular, can be toward androgyny.

The American approach to stories about youth usually looks as though they’ve been filmed through a gauzy lens. American audiences are bombarded by nostalgia for fat-cheeked childhood. And, lessons of discovery and coming-of-age are typically shown through the perspective of the privileged. Sciamma does fall into the trap of focusing solely on white stories, and while it’s a relief to see stories that aren’t just focused on cis-males, it would be better to explore issues of race as well.

She does try to address these identities as authentically as possible. Sciamma comments on this and says casting is important to her.

“I chose them to be very age appropriate to the story, because I wanted that innocence and fear and inexperience and passion to come through. I didn’t think a 20-year-old playing 15 would give that same performance,” Sciamma said in a 2008 interview with Go Magazine.

And because her actors are the age of the characters, the pathos is stronger and the emotional arc is more realistic. We can connect to the sexual experiences of the girls without sexualizing them.

In the same interview, Sciamma talked about being outed as gay by the American press.

“I am a lesbian director, but I’m also a woman director, and a French director. If you add them all, it’s okay, but separating one out is not honest. In France there is less of a question of whether you are a lesbian or not. It’s other places that it is such a big deal,” she said.

She talked about the issue of being a woman and a director in another interview with Canape in 2008.

“The secrets of the girls I think is the secrets of women in general. That’s why I made the movie, because I think cinema has really been celebrating women but it’s always men doing the talking and it’s always in the man’s point of view. I think the secrets of women is that they have no secrets. They can be cruel. They can be ugly. They can be beautiful. They can be awkward. Cinema is always enhancing the mysteries of women. What I wanted to tell is what is behind the mysteries.”

And in not trying to enhance anything about the experiences of girls and women, Sciamma provides a refreshing narrative about coming of age.

Foreign Film Week: Growing Up Queer: ‘Water Lilies’ (2007) and ‘Tomboy’ (2011)

Written by Max Thornton, this review previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on June 26, 2012.

Céline Sciamma’s films are ever so French. Light on dialogue, they tend to rely on lingering shots of longing glances and exquisite mise-en-scène to reveal character; loosely plotted, they leave the impression less of a story than of a series of vignettes, of tiny moments freighted with great import.

These techniques are uniquely suited to the onscreen portrayal of adolescence. It almost seems churlish to complain that Water Lilies and Tomboy lack full structural coherence, because that’s arguably intentional. Growing up, after all, is not a tightly-plotted three-act hero’s journey with clear turning points, tidy linear progression through the successive stages of personal development, and a satisfying ending. It’s a messy and confusing struggle to find a place in the world, littered with incidents that may or may not ultimately be significant (with no way to tell the difference), and most of the time the morals make no sense.

Sciamma instinctively understands this, and the little stories she tells of growing up queer are given vivid life through her two greatest strengths as a filmmaker: her ability to coax marvelously deep and naturalistic performances out of her young actors, and her eye for a strikingly memorable little scene that perfectly encapsulates a moment of overpowering adolescent emotion – the normally boisterous Anne clutching at a lamppost and weeping in Water Lilies, for example, or Tomboy‘s Laure curling up on the couch, thumb in mouth, suddenly overwhelmed by an earlier humiliation.

Both films are carried on the remarkably expressive faces of their lead actresses. There are no voice-over monologues or expository conversations, but both Water Lilies and Tomboy present the inner life of their protagonists with stunning depth and rawness.

Movie poster for Water Lilies

The protagonist of Water Lilies is Pauline Acquart’s Marie, a quiet fifteen-year-old with a crush on Floriane, star of the local synchronized swimming team. Marie’s best friend Anne, meanwhile, has her eye on Floriane’s boyfriend François. So far, so Gossip Girl, but there is nothing over-dramatic or sensationalistic about the way this love quadrilateral plays out. Although the film’s primary focus is on the blossoming friendship between Marie and Floriane, there is a clear thematic through-line of what it is to grow up female in the patriarchy. Marie, Anne, and Floriane all embody different ways of being young women, and especially young women coming into their sexuality.

Anne, though less conventionally feminine than the other girls, is confidently heterosexual and determined to sleep with the boy she finds attractive. Marie is so eager to spend time with Floriane that she agrees to help her sneak out to meet François, and her yearnings for the lithe bodies slipping through the water are beautifully conveyed through moments such as the shot of Marie shifting, flustered, as Floriane unselfconsciously changes into a swimsuit right in front of her. Floriane herself, despite the reputation she cultivates (perhaps recognizing that denial would be futile – once branded a “slut,” a teenage girl is hopelessly trapped in a no-win morass of contradictory social pressures), eventually confesses to Marie that she has never actually had sex, and in fact is afraid to do so.

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t.”

“I have to.”

“Where did you read that?”

“All over my face, apparently. If he finds out I’m not a real slut, it’s over.”

Floriane recounts several instances of sexual harassment from men; when Marie has no similar stories to share, Floriane tells her, “You’re lucky… very lucky.” And perhaps to some extent she is. Perhaps, as Anne and Marie float fully-clothed in the pool at the end of the movie, while Floriane dances alone for the boys she’s not certain she even wants to be with, they are considering their good fortune: they, at least, are strong enough to defy the patriarchal dictates around female sexual behavior, to name and claim their desires (or lack thereof), to make mistakes and learn from them without being defined by them. Growing up female in this world is hard, but they know they will make it.

Movie poster Tomboy

Tomboy tells a very different story of growing up queer. Zoé Héran turns in a truly remarkable performance as androgynous ten-year-old Laure, who, on moving to a new neighborhood, is asked by the friendly Lisa, “T’es nouveau?” – “Are you new?” – in a way that genders Laure male. In that moment, Laure becomes Mikael, a boy who spends a happy summer among his new friends and his puppy-love girlfriend Lisa. For the duration of the summer, Laure is confined to home and family (well-meaning dad, heavily pregnant mom, hyper-femme little sister Jeanne), and Mikael is the face presented to the world.

Any ten-year-old lives in the present, and Mikael meets each challenge as it arises – sneaking away deep into the woods when the other boys casually take a pee break; snipping a girl’s swimsuit into a boy’s, and constructing a Play-Doh packer to fill it; swearing Jeanne to secrecy when Lisa unwittingly tells her about Mikael – even as it becomes increasingly clear to the viewer that eventually Laure’s parents must find out about Mikael. As loving as they are, they still exert some gender-policing of their oldest child: Mom’s delight at hearing that Laure has made a female friend (“You’re always hanging out with the boys”) might have been tempered if she’d remembered that “copine” can also mean girlfriend!

The relationships between the various children are superbly observed, and constitute reason enough to see Tomboy in themselves. The energetic activities of childish horseplay that give Mikael such joy in himself and in his body – dancing enthusiastically with Lisa, playing soccer shirtless, wrestling in swimsuits on the dock – are balanced by the many lovely domestic scenes demonstrating the closeness of Laure’s relationship with Jeanne. This is honestly one of the most moving and genuine cinematic portrayals of a sibling relationship in years, and after her initial shock Jeanne takes to the idea of Mikael like a duck to water, boasting to another child about her awesome big brother, and telling her parents that her favorite of Laure’s new friends is Mikael.

The parents themselves, unfortunately, are much less accepting of Mikael. The film’s ending is ambiguous, allowing for multiple readings of the exact nature of Laure’s queerness; indeed, the film has been criticized as “an appropriation of trans narratives by a cis filmmaker toward her own purposes”; but to me the ending is terribly unhappy. With deep breaths and with profound conflict on Héran’s preternaturally expressive face, the character is forced to claim “Laure,” the name and gender assigned at birth and not the ones of choice. The cissupremacy has won this round.

Though Tomboy is the better film, the two movies make excellent companion pieces. Between them they depict a range of queerness and explore a variety of strategies for growing up queer (and/or female) in a hostile world. And yet they offer no easy solutions, no cheap moralizing, no promise that it gets better. These films, and the characters they portray, simply are. And, in the end, isn’t that the one universal truth of queer people? There is no ur-narrative of queerness. There is no right or wrong way to be queer. We simply are.

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Max Thornton is a Bitch Flicks writer, blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

LGBTQI Week: Growing Up Queer: ‘Water Lilies’ (2007) and ‘Tomboy’ (2011)

This is a guest review by Max Thornton.

Movie poster for Water Lilies

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t.”

“I have to.”

“Where did you read that?”

“All over my face, apparently. If he finds out I’m not a real slut, it’s over.”

Movie poster Tomboy

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Max Thornton is a grad student and a stranger in a strange land, who writes words at Gay Christian Geek and has previously contributed a review of No Country For Old Men.

Movie Preview: Tomboy

I don’t have much to say about this film: it looks amazing, and I can’t wait to see it. Here’s the movie synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her Jean Seberg haircut and tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Michael. Filmmaker Céline Sciamma brings a light and charming touch to this drama of childhood gender confusion. Zoe Heran as Laure/Michael and Malonn Levanna as Jeanne are nothing less than brilliant. This is a relationship movie: relationships between children, and the even more complicated one between one’s heart and body.

It’s gotten wonderful reviews so far, which isn’t surprising since it’s written and directed by Céline Sciamma, who also wrote and directed Water Lilies. The film doesn’t officially start playing (in limited release) until November 16th (I’m so there), but I’ll post the trailer to tide us over until then.