Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Suzanne Lindon
Starring: Suzanne Lindon, Arnaud Valois, Rebecca Marder, Frédéric Pierrot, Dominique Besnehard, Florence Viala
While America has argued the case against nepotism with Max Landis, Sam
Levinson and Max Brooks, France has given us Jean Renoir, Jean Becker,
Jacques Tourneur and Charlotte Gainsbourg. You can add
Suzanne Lindon, daughter of actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine
Kiberlain, to the Gallic case for keeping it in the family. Her writing,
directing and acting debut, Spring Blossom (which she
began working on while 15!), is an enviably assured debut from a
filmmaker who has only been alive for five World Cup finals.
Lindon casts herself as her namesake Suzanne, a privileged Parisian
16-year-old who has grown bored of her friends and their shallow
interests. At a party, when asked to rate the boys in attendance out of
10, she cuttingly replies, "I'd give them all a five." Suzanne is
looking for someone who shares her mature interests of poetry,
literature, opera and theatre, and she appears to find it in Raphael (Arnaud Valois), the handsome 35-year-old actor currently appearing on stage in a
small theatre near her home. Like Suzanne, Arnaud is finding himself in
a crisis of sorts, unsure if he wants to continue with his stage
career.
The two lonely souls, struggling to fit in with their respective
worlds, bond over breakfasts of bread and strawberry jam washed down
with grenadine and lemonade. Few words are exchanged between the pair,
and even fewer glances, as though both seem uncomfortably aware of the
taboo nature of their relationship. There is no physical consummation of
their courtship, rather they engage in interpretive dance sequences,
which may or may not be figments of Suzanne's imagination. For quite a
while we're left to wonder if indeed Raphael himself has been conjured
up by Suzanne, as nobody seems to bat an eyelid at a thirty-something
hanging around with a schoolgirl. But then, this is Paris.
Lindon has certainly picked a provocative subject for her debut, and
some viewers may dismiss Spring Blossom as the naïve
fantasy of a teenage girl. But Lindon is clearly mature beyond her
years, and crucially, more worldly than her onscreen namesake. This
isn't a film about a young girl being taken advantage of by an older man
so much as it's a drama about two disenchanted people making a
connection, ala Kogonada's
Columbus. The movie would have worked equally well if the relationship between
Suzanne and Raphael were rendered purely platonic, and it could be made
to appear so by simply editing out one or two scenes.
While her subject may be inflammatory, Lindon renders it as a sort of
poetic mundanity, never seeking to shock us. It's a light-hearted movie,
shot with a delicate grace, sketches in a schoolgirl's jotter brought to
life. Suzanne enjoys a charming relationship with her parents, who react
to her suspicious questions about how to woo a man with the disparity
you might expect. Her Dad (Frédéric Pierrot) simply tells her to
go to bed when her probing about whether men prefer skirts or pants
makes him uncomfortable, while her mother (Florence Viala)
chooses to keep quiet and listen, trusting her daughter to make her own
mistakes and learn from them.
Like
Call Me by Your Name
and
The Souvenir, Spring Blossom is a movie that feels like a filmmaker
looking back on something they consider a youthful folly, a mistake they
learnt from. What's remarkable is that this is coming directly from the
horse's mouth as it were, as Lindon acts out on screen an experience
she's musing, rather than reflecting on. If only all teenagers should
get such an opportunity to make their mistakes in the realm of
fiction.
