Ava

What a poignant but simple tale of a thirteen years old girl who lives with her baby sister and single mother and who discovers one day that she will slowly get blind in a few months. Then she becomes awry, especially as a teen. She steals a dog from a vagrant, a gypsy in his twenties, a wayward young gypsy searched by the police. With him, the young girl will try to get pleasure in life before getting prisoner of the forever darkness. You can think some minutes about a sort of BONNIE AND CLYDE scheme. A desperate but no totally hopeless story however.

I found it bold in many ways. I'm not sure of having already seen something like this. Violence boldness, artistic boldness, hippie boldness, yes, but every day boldness ? boldness to accept one's weakness ? Boldness to accept my weakness ? I found it surprising in many ways but it goes with it. It's funny, crazy, sexy, cool, true. I do not want to spoil any surprises so I won't say much more. I don't know if it's a great movie, but for me it is a memorable movie as I do not often see.

This is an uneven movie: the first part is made with sensitivity ,avoiding pathos and melodrama;the second one may puzzle some viewers and seems written haphazardly,improvised ,a little a la old "Nouvelle Vague".

Ava is going to go blind sooner as she expected :her desease is not so unusual ,I know a person who suffers from it:but the progression ,fortunately, is much slower than Ava's who is only thirteen ,an age where she a new world should be waiting for her,the first beau, the first young emotions.

Medical exams are boiled down to one scene:the diagnosis is given by the ophtamologist with sympathy,quite openly:no tears,no cries ,but a strong restrained pain.

Her mother ,unfortunately ,athough she acts with her daughter as a chum, is an immature selfish person:about forty ,she still believes she is young and pretty , and that she can seduce younger men (gigolos ,says Ava);she does not realize that time has taken its toll and that she cannot pass for a teenage girl anymore,even with all the make up in the world.

The mother's implicit acceptance of her daughter's tragedy leads the girl to an act of defiance ;mom told her daughter she should not sleep with the boys till she is sixteen or seventeen or even more,"it's not a shame" ;but shortly after ,she swims in the nude (the movie includes full frontal female nudity) and seduces a foreign boy ,probably an immigrant ;her second act of rebellion is helping him escape for the police ,who will intervene again during the wedding in the restaurant where Ava has become a waitress (the cause is not specified,but he is probably a foreign national whose papers are not in order).

This rebellion against establishment may symbolize a rebellion against her own fate ,this darkness which hangs over like a sword of Damocles.

However ,I still believe this second part is underwritten ;the director has her movie back in control again only in the last minutes, with a good use of light and darkness.

That said,on the current "feel-good" French scene,it is definitely a worthwhile work.

AVA is set on an idyllic seaside town during a typical French summer holiday were the 13-year-old title hero learns that her sight is deteriorating, (brilliant performance from Noee Abita who was 18 at the time for obvious reasons). This dilemma forces Ava to create her own world, where along the way she befriends a young Gypsy boy and his dog. They form a pact and hit the road as they make a run from the law and life itself. The young director, Lea Mysius, mixes it up with neorealism, a bit of pop culture, and some surreal moments, capturing perfectly the mindset of a teenager going through puberty during her pending ordeal.

I liked it: the film operates with loads and loads of symbols without becoming tedious or cumbersome. Instead, the viewer is invited to be curious about these ideas and dive deeper into the layers. Casting is spot on, characters are good, and I simply adore the soundtrack. What made me strangely detached early on was the fact that I simply did not find the film believable, and even the music score could hardly drag me back into the plot. Obviously, I did not expect reality from it. And I love fairy tales, by the way. Yet somehow the characters' motivations and the way these are fit into the narrative leave things to be desired. They felt incomplete. It's a very good movie, but as it is mighty close to being great, a slightly frustrating one at the same time.