Mercuriales

Virgil Vernier is best known for his earlier documentary films. This is his first fictional film, but it retains a documentary feel.

As mentioned by other reviewers the story is very loose. It basically involves a group of teenage girls wandering around Parisian suburbs and musing on life.

The film features some fantastical elements mainly the girl telling stories about Moldova. The film felt a bit nihilistic and grim. I suppose comparisons to Larry Clark's Kids aren't unfair, but this is a far less sensational film.

As a word of warning the film features an incredibly graphic sex scene in the Palachi club as well as strobing. This didn't really add anything to the film.

The photography is very impressive and the strongest feature. I wasn't that invested in the characters and I didn't really care about their lives. That's a real shame as the film gets off to a strong start with a young security guard being shown round a generator room of a tower block and it had that anything could happen feel. What we're presented with wasn't anywhere near as impactful as Lilya Forever, a similar film about disenchanted youth in an urban setting or anywhere near as magical as say love letters to Paris: Amelie or Zazie dans la metro. A bit of an uneven mixture, but this is the work of a clearly very talented director who I look forward to seeing more of.

The various characters that inhabit the Mercuriales Towers resemble those captured in their own urban island as in Jia Zhangke's "The world". However here the two young girls, escape this encampment and follow a strong friendship. The director seems to want to express almost too much, as often happens in debuts.

There is an underlying atmosphere of magic, supernatural, which reflects youth's frustrations, anger or drama. For example the demolition at the final is perhaps a reflection of the separation of the two. The rebellious acts against Paris urbanity and mythological creatures reminds of Rivette's "Pont du nord". Moreover, there is also sensuality. The way this angst of young age is expressed is remarkable. I can't say there is anything remarkable about the youngsters here, being average, but what matters is the keen reflection of their temperaments in our modern world.