These few years that stand between adolescence and the teen years are an awakening. They’re consumed with overwhelming discovery and loss, as is depicted in Falcon Lake. For 13-year-old Bastien (Joseph Engal), the summer time he travels to Quebec from France along with his household adjustments every little thing. Tall and lean and with no cellular phone entry till he turns 14, Bas appears enthusiastic about his summer time trip.
He spends his days entertaining his toddler-age brother Titi (Thomas Laperriere), taking part in along with his Nintendo Swap, and avoiding the waters of Falcon Lake. A scary incident from his youthful years makes swimming an exercise he actively avoids. Whereas Bas appears content material at first to spend his days lounging below the near-constant overcast sky, he finds himself the unlikely companion of 16-year-old Chloé (Sara Montpetit), the daughter of his dad and mom’ good friend with whom they’re staying. Bas and Titi are additionally sharing a bunkbed in Chloé’s bed room.
Charlotte Le Bon presents a unique kind of coming-of-age story
For Bas, Chloé is an instantaneous supply of fascination. The dark-haired magnificence is obsessive about demise and ghost tales. “It’s apparently fun to drown,” she says at one level in the movie. Regardless of the age distinction between Bas and herself, she appears desirous to have Bas round. Although Chloé has additionally earned the affection of some of the older guys on the town, she’s calmed by Bas’s presence and innocence, first as somewhat brother, then as a real good friend, and later maybe one thing extra.
There have been loads of coming-of-age movies, particularly narratives that seize the lengthy sticky summer time days simply at first adjustments in a teen’s life. But, together with her directorial debut, loosely tailored from Bastien Vives’ graph novel Un Soeur, Charlotte Le Bon manages to do one thing totally different.
Chloé and Bas’ vulnerability are at the coronary heart of ‘Falcon Lake’
A lot of teenhood is about our want to slot in, really feel accepted, and get alongside, even when it goes in opposition to how we genuinely really feel. There’s a desperation to be seen and heard even when the want for solitude can really feel like a balm. With all of his wide-eyed disbelief, Bas feels seen the first time Chloé invitations him to hold together with her, and Chloé, in Bas’s presence, turns into extra than simply an object of the male gaze. Regardless of the darkish tone that wraps round the movie, the vulnerability that Chloé and Bas enable themselves to really feel in one another’s presence is what drives Falcon Lake.
‘Falcon Lake’s tragic ending isn’t what you’d anticipate
Sometimes, movies depicting teenhood are forged below the blazing scorching solar. Heat colours make every little thing really feel extra saturated and full of life. Falcon Lake is totally different from the begin. Shot on 16mm, the movie is darkish, boasting cool colours and fixed rainstorms. There’s a suggestion from the opening that one thing earth-shattering is on the horizon. But, even with that eerie feeling, the tragic ending isn’t fairly what one would possibly anticipate.