Aakansha

Bonjour Tristesse

fsdo'22 | W3: Georges Périnal So many knotted shirts. Pretty place lends to pretty imagery. The black-and-white aspect works well narratively; doesn't feel gimmicky. Makes the past look more vivid, exciting, full. It might be nitpicky idk but there are a few moments here and there that feel off. Like the scene where Cecile's hating on Anne, sees herself in the mirror, starts criticizing herself, then sticks out her tongue. I get what they were going for, and the mirror usage & dialogue spoken next by present-Cecile are not exactly subtle. But the change still feels like a sudden flip and inauthentic. And the precise moment she decides to tell Anne also feels kind of shallow.

nathansnook

Bonjour Tristesse

“𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦, 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘪𝘵? 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.” Chew Bose, author of one of my favorite essay collections (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2046824491), takes adaptation as invention to further grow on the very experience of girlhood : womanhood. While Sagan's novel (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61672.Bonjour_tristesse?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=HeibabOB6Q&rank=1) has always played with the theatrics in teen girl naivety, Bose writes in and fleshes out the other women in the book. Details and decorations fill the film. There’s a book in every hand. I had the pleasure of chatting with Durga a bit and she shared that: Raymond, the father figure, is most definitely reading a book inspired by Min kamp (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1331922428) by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Anne, played by the poised Sevigny, reads A Great Wind Blew by E. Yang, which was inspired by the number of Edward Yang films her and her team watched. The book Claudia, Claudia by Valentina Gherardini is inspired by Antonioni’s La Notte (https://letterboxd.com/film/la-notte/) and L’Avventura (https://letterboxd.com/film/lavventura/). The greatest sin is that Chew Bose can’t kill her darlings. Too much of everything she loves is here. Cool girl aesthetic, charm and elegance. And though the film suffers the usual cosmetic Too much is prided in the purity of girlhood, and how it all collapses itself into womanhood. “𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭.” “𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵.” With lines such as these, we know this is a girl’s film. This is a novelist’s film. This is very much the kind of film Chew Bose would make, but with her skills as a good writer, this works much better in the tradition of literary fiction, and it would be interesting to see more adaptations of novels to novels, a novel idea in itself.