[GOODBYE FIRST LOVE
screens Friday July 27th at 9:25 pm and Saturday July 28th at 7:05
pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
All the passion and immaturity,
unrealistic expectations and foolish vows of a young first love are
depicted with a keen and knowing eye in Mia Hansen-Løve's GOODBYE
FIRST LOVE. It's 1999 and
Camille (Lola Creton) is a fifteen year old beauty who is already
certain she wants to spend the rest of her life with Sullivan
(Sebastian Urzendowsky). That Sullivan often neglects his girlfriend
to hang out with the guys and is often insensitive and immature is
probably about par for the course for teenage boys, and Camille isn't
exactly what you'd call a self actualized person at this stage of her
life, either. So when Sullivan leaves for a 10 month trip through
South America, it's not much of a surprise that the relationship
doesn't survive.
Camille
still holds on to the memory of that first love, though, finding it
difficult to get past her nostalgia and get on with her life.
Eventually we see that she does as the movie jumps ahead to her
college years studying to be an architect, finding both herself and a
new love (Magne-Håvard Brekke) along the way. Still, the memory of
that first romance refuses to fade. When Camille and Sullivan cross
paths again, the sparks between them reignite, even though Camille
has grown considerably while Sullivan still seems like the same
immature, insensitive guy he was as a teenager. No one ever said
passion was logical.
While
the movie is by no means hard to follow from a narrative standpoint,
there is less a plot here than a series of vignettes. The focus isn't
on the suspense that comes from the possibility of an illicit affair
being found out – in fact, that barely seems to rate as a concern
for Camille. Rather this is a movie about the power of an old flame
to keep drawing one back like a moth, and the goal of GOODBYE
FIRST LOVE is to capture the
emotional and mental state that accompanies that pull. In that
respect it succeeds remarkably well. 4 out of 4 stars.
As published on Examiner.com
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