AWARDS
Special Mention – Locarno International Film Festival (2011)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
Sundance Select
RUNNING TIME 110’
PRODUCTION France,
Germany, 2010
RATING Not Rated
GAUGE 35mm, Blu-ray, DVD
“Rising auteur Mia Hansen-Løve (“Father of My Children”) delivers another smoothly
helmed slice of Gallic life in the decade-spanning romantic drama, “Goodbye First
Love”. The film offers up the sort of casual, insightful and at times sexually candid
storytelling that, if it wasn’t necessarily invented in France, has definitely become
one the nation’s more prized genres. “Goodbye First Love”– whose subtler originallanguage
title translates to “A Young Love” – shows how well Hansen-Løve can
provide the type of sensitive, seemingly nonchalant filmmaking that was perfected
by the late Eric Rohmer.”
Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter.
In her exceptional third feature, writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve shows, as
she did in her previous film, The Father of My Children (2009), her talent
for capturing the agony and the ecstasy of adolescence. Besotted
teenagers Sullivan and Camille struggle, as all couples must, with a painful
push-pull dynamic, heightened by the decision of the young man—who’s
not quite ready to commit—to leave Paris and travel in South America.
Over the course of eight years, we watch Camille, initially devastated by
her boyfriend’s departure, emerge with new passions, intellectual and
otherwise. As a heartbroken 15-year-old, Camille spirals into a paralyzing
depression; gradually she grows stronger, discovering an avid interest in
architecture, which she studies with an older professor who becomes her
lover. Touchingly illuminating the indelible imprint that first romance
leaves, Hansen-Løve’s film also explores the hard-won satisfaction of
leaving the past behind.
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