I watched this on Mubi on the 10th of August, 2024, travelling to London for my birthday.
I liked it! It had a blend of magical realism and literariness that I haven’t seen before.
The story is that a decade or so ago, a woman in a small town gymnastics team falls for a new arrival, who sometimes hallucinates seeing a young child, and suffers mentally for it. They both decide to run away from the town after a performance at their school, but after the performance the girl sees the child and tries to get rid of her by burning down the tree she’s hiding in, and accidentally burning down the school and severely disfiguring one of the first girl’s close friends.
A decade later, the first girl has married the second girl’s brother, and has a child, who seems to be witchily-inclined: she has an otherworldly sense of smell, and can replicate a scent by mixing ingredients. She is the young child the second girl used to hallucinate: by mixing ingredients, she seems to be able to time travel/travel to the memory of the past, observing the romance between her mother and the second girl. In the present, the second girl gets out of prison and comes to visit her brother, and she rekindles her romance with the first girl, all the while suffering the town’s condemnation, the hate of the girl she disfigured, and the intimidation of the first girl’s father. The movie ends with the second girl trying to kill herself, but being saved by the mother and child. The mother accompanies her to the hospital, while her husband and child cry, and then dance at home.
It was really well crafted. The conceit that the child the second girl hallucinated was the daughter of her love was just devastating: the thing that drove her crazy and sent her to prison was the outcome of her love’s future husband, a rejection of her orientation.
It was deeply French, and the performances were just gorgeous. The husband’s depiction was painful and deliciously written, and the actor performed the confusion and grief exquisitely. The magical realism was done in a way I haven’t really seen before, and I really liked it. I did feel there were some pacing issues, and it ended on somewhat of a whimper, but overall, really good.