By Keeva Stratton
Goodbye First Love (2012)
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Starring: Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky and Magne-Håvard Brekke
Reviewer Rating: 4/5
Mia Hansen-Løve is fast building a reputation as one of France’s most romantic and exciting young screen directors. Her previous film, My Father’s Children, was devastatingly beautiful as it explored the emotional turmoil created as a result of financial pressure and family pride.
Mia’s latest film, Goodbye First Love (currently screening as part of the French Film Festival), is again centered on emotional tension. This time she captures the ongoing pull one can feel between the intoxicating, obsessive and destructive nature of your first taste of passion, and the desperate need to let it go in order to allow yourself to truly embrace more mature romances.
The film follows the romantic tribulations of Camille (Lola Créton), as she attempts to leave her first love, Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), behind. We are taken on a painful journey that explores the difficulty of letting go—even when you know that holding on is doing you harm. Camille and Sullivan fall in love in high school, and later, when Sullivan decides to travel alone for a year, what begins as a promise to stay together soon devolves into the painful realisation that their physical distance is ending his commitment to her.
In university, a more mature Camille enters a relationship with her older teacher, and finds for the first time the safe and stable allure of a mature partnership. But, a chance encounter with Sullivan’s mother sees Camille starting to long for her idealised past, and when Sullivan returns she is torn between past passions and present comforts.
Shot in Paris and across the beautiful French countryside, this is a film that looks as romantic as it feels. Presenting us with a tale that will no doubt resonate with many women, Mia Hansen-Løve has again shown that she understands emotion, and is willing to offer women a cinematic expression of themes to which we can all relate.
Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2012 is travelling across Australia during March and April. For details visit www.affrenchfilmfestival.org
For screening details visit: https://www.palacecinemas.com.au/
