Naissance des Pieuvres is a striking film, though with a cop-out of a translation for its title: Water Lilies is hardly the same as Birth of Octopuses (odd or ungainly as that sounds in blunt translation). Maybe the Monet title was thought more likely to garner an international audience for this picture about the sexual awakenings of the teenage girls in a Parisian synchronized swimming team. As it is, this is a painfully watchful movie with intense work from its three female leads and a nice turn by its only male named character, Francois (Warren Jacquin), a blond water polo boy who becomes the object of obsession for self-conscious chunky Anne (Louise Blachere) after he walks in on her naked in the changing rooms. But Francois fancies the more obviously attractive team captain, Floriane (Adele Haenel), who uses observer Marie (Pauline Acquart) as cover to arrange clandestine meetings with Francois for sexual discovery. It is the triangle of girls who are the focus of the film’s scrutiny, rather than Francois, who is revealed finally as an undeveloped one-dimensional type of the teenage boy keen to have sex no matter with whom. Acquart’s watchful features as Haenel and Blachere shuttle in and out of Francois’ immediate sexual desire provide the film with much of its mesmeric power.
You can see why the original title was applied when the camera moves underwater: legs flash in such close proximity that we have an illusion of some many-limbed creature flailing about trying to find something to cling to. In one sequence, Acquart observes this and then swims freely across the front of the screen, her character its own screen wipe, denying the power of this social creature, striking out on her own. It takes a voyage of emotional discovery on the part of Floriane to achieve the same unconcern, momentarily – her character vacillates between independence and needing to conform to the stereotype of the attractive but available girl.
There’s a neat new way to shop lift; a script which is sharply frank about friendship and sexual desire; a blithe attitude to the camera witnessing teenage nudity or bodies vulnerably clad in wet costumes (mainly female for the film is essentially about female experience); two uninhibited sex scenes; and a hilarious way to pass the time with a friend and a bottle of water. There’s also a meditation upon the moment of death. It’s a very assured debut and doesn’t overstay its welcome on the screen.
You can see why the original title was applied when the camera moves underwater: legs flash in such close proximity that we have an illusion of some many-limbed creature flailing about trying to find something to cling to. In one sequence, Acquart observes this and then swims freely across the front of the screen, her character its own screen wipe, denying the power of this social creature, striking out on her own. It takes a voyage of emotional discovery on the part of Floriane to achieve the same unconcern, momentarily – her character vacillates between independence and needing to conform to the stereotype of the attractive but available girl.
There’s a neat new way to shop lift; a script which is sharply frank about friendship and sexual desire; a blithe attitude to the camera witnessing teenage nudity or bodies vulnerably clad in wet costumes (mainly female for the film is essentially about female experience); two uninhibited sex scenes; and a hilarious way to pass the time with a friend and a bottle of water. There’s also a meditation upon the moment of death. It’s a very assured debut and doesn’t overstay its welcome on the screen.