Water Lilies (2007)
Directed by Céline Sciamma
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
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What critics compared Water Lilies to
Sciamma’s first three films—Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), and Girlhood (2014)—were all contemporary tales of adolescence and coming of age in modern France, told with frank sensitivity.
The answer to all of these questions is “yes” which highlights the complex, beautiful nature of this feature film from French director Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies, Girlhood).
From these ashes, and the ashes of the director’s real-life relationship with actress Adèle Haenel (Héloise in Portrait and Floriane in Sciamma’s Water Lilies ) comes an utterly lovely film I’m sure the Criterion angels are already whispering about.
Director Céline Sciamma, one of many women filmmakers on the rise in France, has won a following for such contemporary coming-of-agers as Water Lilies and Tomboy .
Although this is Sciamma’s first movie set in the distant past, it feels thematically of a piece with her earlier “Water Lilies” (which also featured Haenel), “Tomboy” and “Girlhood” — all stories about young women exploring their own nonconformist notions of gender and sexuality.
French writer/director Céline Sciamma has hypnotizing powers—her spellbinding pull was unmissable in both the sensual “Water Lilies” and the gleaming coming-of-age tale “ Girlhood .”