Aubrey MaloneBaden Baden
Apart from a very casual abortion scene – which seems to be the norm these days – this is a well-made film. A joint French-Belgian production, it’s done in the familiar continental style where events seem to just happen rather than being imposed on the viewer in a pre-conceived ‘plot.’ I‘ve always admired this quality in European films, which is in marked contrast to the contrivance we witness in most mainstream Hollywood offerings.
It’s particularly appropriate to the subject matter here as the film deals with the life of an impetuous 26-year-old girl, Ana (Salome Richard), who lives in the moment, managing to knock out a jolly time for herself even while performing the most ordinary tasks. When we first meet her, however, she’s leaving a job in a traumatic state. She doesn’t depart without helping herself to her bosses’ car – without asking him for it.
She’s kind to her grandmother, a woman who manages to see the funny side of life despite her many health problems. Ana is humorous too but her free-spirited nature means she generally finds herself making plays for all the wrong kinds of men.
Her main involvement is with her ex, Boris (Olivier Chantreau), a philanderer who treats her like a discardable plaything. The film follows her relationship with him in a series of vignettes that take place over a seminal summer, interspersed with other ones showing her caring for her granny, crying about her disastrous love life and helping with the replacement of her granny’s bath with a shower to make her ablutions easier. An inordinate amount of time is devoted to this operation, which she performs with a hilariously clumsy DIY store worker.
The title of the film is beguilingly odd as it’s about a girl, not a place. Also odd are some dream sequences. I liked its improvisational style. It’s episodic and nonchalant. But is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? That’s debatable. It rolls along inchoately for 95 minutes, many of which seem inconsequential.
Feature
It’s the debut feature of Rachel Lang. She shows a lot of professionalism in her direction but naturalism works better when we care more about the characters than we do here.
The abortion scene is slotted in almost like a trip to the dentist, which doesn’t sit at all well with the caring nature Ana has exhibited up to this point. Can a person show such love for an elderly relative as she does and yet dispense with an unwanted child so flippantly? Are we approaching an age where abortion-on-demand means the killing of a foetus will eventually have the same status as the extraction of an annoying tooth?
Have we reached that pass already with the kind of soundbites we’re hearing about the possible repeal of the Eighth Amendment?
Baden Baden is showing at the Irish Film Institute. This means it’s cert-free, but the events on display are adult, as you will have gathered.
Fair **