Ava

I'm American, but I like foreign movies. I especially like French movies. I most especially like French coming-of-age movies; they tend to be more authentic and honest than any others. But this one let me down, for a number of reasons.

First, the plot line of the girl slowly going blind went nowhere, and did not need to be there to justify the actions of the title character. A girl of that age, going through the changes of young adulthood, with all its mixed emotions, could easily have gone through the same experiences without that plot element. It was unnecessary.

There was some awkward editing in the film, too. It was like the filmmakers didn't know how to, or couldn't, end some scenes, so they just cut away from them. Among such moments was the scene by the raging river. It was obvious the scene couldn't be finished, so they just cut away from it. Like I said, awkward.

The worse part, though, was the lead actress. I'm not attacking her acting ability, but she just absolutely did not look like a 13 year-old. She didn't have the facial features, body, or mannerisms of a girl of that age. If they had made her, say, 16 instead of 13, she would have been more believable. And she could still have gone through the same emotions and done the same things. Honestly, that aspect, where the actress was so obviously older than the character she played, took me out of the film. Dig up an older French film named "Beau Pere" and see what I mean; there, the actress playing a 14 year-old looks and acts like, well, a 14 year old.

All in all, as French coming-of-age movies go, this was not one of the better ones.

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.

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.

For a debut feature, this is nicely done, with some pleasantly-surprising turns that help avoid the cliches of the coming-of-age-rebellion trope.

As someone else has said, she doesn't really need to be 13 for the plot to work. Something like 16 would have been fine, and the fact that Noee was older than 13 at the time of filming would not have been so obvious. However, IMHO, she is excellent in this - even better than in Slalom, which I also saw recently.

Despite the underlying tragedy of her situation (horrifying disease prognosis, useless mother...), there are some nice touches of humour (loved the dog on the moped) and sweetness from the supporting characters (such as the bride).

Recommended.

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.