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Review of “Water Lilies”

Allusions to Monet may provide a prettier picture, but consider that the original French title of the film Water Lilies is Naissance des Pieuvres – which translates to “birth of the octopuses,” those eight-armed geniuses of aquatic camouflage that are genetically programmed to die after they reproduce. Association with such a dark fate might explain the anxiety and awkwardness that engulfs three French girls on the cusp of adult sexualities in this new film by out lesbian director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma.

Water Lilies delivers a vivid impression of Euro-teen angst set against the backdrop of competitive synchronized swimming in the Paris suburb of Cergy. My French friend who spent her childhood near this ville nouvelle built in the 1960s noted Cergy’s weird but cool modern architecture and its greenery unfortunately surrounded by too much concrete.

In other words, Cergy sounds like the ideal location for Sciamma’s warm-weather tale of 15-year-olds overwhelmed by the prospect of their biological destinies and the confusing novelty of their desires. Their growing pains unfold in a world almost completely devoid of adult characters (not to mention the riots that touched this Paris banlieue in real life last year).

As a result of this teenage perspective, some might think of Water Lilies as My Summer of Love blended with Fat Girls, spiced with a dash of The Virgin Suicides. When people over 21 do appear in the film, they are generally annoying authority figures, such as the female coach who subjects the young swimmers’ armpits to shaving inspections, or the pervy male coaches who become aroused around the girls.

Water Lilies opens with orchestral music and shots of buff deltoids in the girls’ locker room at the Piscine du Parvis, where skinny misfit Marie (Pauline Acquart) longs to be part of the indoor synchronized swim team captained by the conventionally gorgeous Floriane (Adèle Haenel). Outfitted in the universal baby dyke uniform of Levi’s, old-school Nike basketball kicks, and a regrettably patterned polo shirt, Marie stares at the choreographed swimmers, wrapped in their glittery one-pieces, with the kind of single-minded attention that Adele Channing used to lavish on Jenny Schecter.

Alas, Marie and her friend Anne (Louise Blachère), a budding indie rocker of voluptuous proportions, inhabit the lower ranks of the teenage totem pole (or its French equivalent) in Cergy. Their bodies reveal their peripheral social positions and inadequate self-images: Plump Anne always waits until she is alone in the locker room to change, and flat-chested Marie removes her bra stealthily without taking off her shirt.

“I’m not normal,” laments Marie to Anne near the beginning of the film as she hoists boxes of powdered laundry detergent to prime her twig-like biceps for the rigors of swimming. She even reveals that one arm is longer than the other.

Their eagerness to transcend their marginal status makes Marie and Anne, like all outsiders, especially vulnerable to the manipulations (conscious or otherwise) of the popular kids. This brute observation about human nature floats the plot of Water Lilies, which paddles slowly before unleashing in a flood in the final quarter of the 85-minute film.

In an entanglement worthy of the celebrated problem-solving skills of an octopus, Anne lusts after the alpha male swimmer, an Abercrombie zombie named François (Warren Jacquin), who wants to sleep with Floriane. But Floriane is not certain whether she’s ready to have sex with a boy.

Meanwhile, Marie grows deeply infatuated with Floriane, even if she does not fully understand the implications of her same-sex attraction. But how else to explain her pawing through the trash to read torn bits of letters and gnaw on the fruit cores that Floriane has discarded?

Cleverly, Sciamma leaves open the question of whether sulky Marie is on the verge of an overtly lesbian epiphany or is simply starstruck by Floriane, a girl so beautiful that she manages to look hot in a nose clip.

What does emerge with more clarity than municipal pool water is the way that Floriane uses Marie to help her navigate a bumpy entrance onto the road of adult heterosexuality. Any woman who’s ever suffered a futile crush on a straight girl will identify with the abuse in which Marie is complicit.

Floriane likes to keep Marie by her side, given that her devoted admirer serves as an alibi for her late afternoon meetings with François, or as a wingwoman to rescue her in the event of unwelcome male attention. Marie goes along with it, until a final request pushes their intense, unclassifiable connection to the brink.

Some powerful scenes ensue that teach Anne and Marie the enduring worth of their friendship, as opposed to the fleeting value of attractions, same-sex or otherwise. “We mustn’t split up, Marie,” Anne says toward the film’s conclusion. “I do daft things by myself.”

Sciamma, 27, makes her feature debut with Water Lilies, a script she wrote as her graduation project at La Fémis, the prestigious French state film school. Her work arrives in the U.S. after being an official selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, winning the youth award at the 2007 Cabourg Romantic Film Festival, and tying for the 2007 Prix Louis Delluc for Best First Film. Viewers might want to add an accolade for best underwater shots of well-toned thighs in vigorous, synchronous motion.

Newcomers Blachère’s and Haenel’s performances were both nominated for the 2008 César Award for Most Promising Actress. And Acquart showcases the potential for subtleties beyond the brooding confines of her role as Marie (but at least a quasi-lesbian character existed for her to play).

Making their solid debut plunges with Water Lilies, all four women are welcome additions to the cinematic landscape.

Water Lilies is currently screening in the U.K. and is in limited release in the U.S.

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