Un amour de jeunesse

One of the first things you notice in Mia Love-Hansen's film, 'Goodbye First Love', is that the supposedly fifteen year old protagonist looks much older; it turns out, there's a reason for this, which is that the drama is going to follow her over several years, so the age of the actress was necessarily a compromise. In fact, the film is conceptually not dissimilar (though heterosexual, and less generally ambitious) from 'Blue is the Warmest Colour': a sensitive and well-drawn story about a talented, attractive young woman whose life is overshadowed by the memory of an intense early relationship. As in real life, when someone is pointlessly in love with someone who does not desire them, you partly want to scream "get over it!", especially when they have obvious advantages they could be exploiting; but humans aren't that simple, although the ending is a touch underwhelming, the story is nicely observed. And if you generally like emotional films about beautiful young Parisiennes, you'll like this one too.

Despite the nice cinematography, lots about this irritated me. Not least the character of the first boyfriend, who came across as a real self-centred arsehole whom she should have been well rid of (as accurately and regularly stated by both her parents). For a lot of the time, she also had a petulant expression which made it additionally hard to sympathise.

However, as well as the characterisation, there were some puzzling lurches in the story (maybe I'd just tuned out?) and, regular use of scenes that just stopped before they'd really ended.... which was a bit frustrating.

Not recommended, unless you're in the market for a "typically French" film with a feel-bad vibe...

one of the best romance movie I've ever seen. it shows a story of an ordinary girl in Paris that her first love had some effect on her. Cammile believes in her love and always says she can't live without love. she's just a 15-year-old girl when finds her love and wants to keep it forever. but, the boy left him and pursue his happiness without her. throughout the movie, we don't hear much dialogs. but the different scenes talk to us about the life of the main character. Cammile is not kinda girl who mingle with different people or be talkative. you can just find out her feelings from her eyes. this movie is good for whom wants to see the real life of people. you cannot expect happen something thrilling or extraordinary from this movie. it just shows us the truth of life. someone may dislike the movie because of the slow pace of the movie. however, this is the feature of this kinda films. the slow pace lets you think about the feelings of the main character at the mean time. it ends in the best way that you can't anticipate it before. everything was natural and I really enjoyed it.

Mia Hansen-Love comes from a philosophical background, and in my opinion is too clear eyed to indulge in the softer edges of so-called ' first love. ' I think the English translation of the film does it an injustice and ' Un Amour de Jeunesse ' should have remained. ' Goodbye First Love ' borders on a weepy prospect and this cinematic near masterpiece is anything but that. I have seen the film three times and its quiet intensity is overwhelming. The director is looking at her characters and trying, as every thinker does to see where the balances and imbalance of passionate young relationships are. The ' story ' is deceptively simple; Lola Creton plays a teenage girl who believes she has found her lifetime partner, and her passion is idealistic and her cry of ' Romeo ' as her lover enters through her window shows how much she projects on him of being the Shakespearean hero who would give up his life for her. Sebastian Urzendowsky plays her ' Romeo ' but has no intention of giving up anything for her. He loves her in his own romantic way as young men can but it is a romance that hurts him with its demands. There is a brief scene of him lying on a bed face clearly grief stricken at the feelings he is enduring towards her. He knows that despite his passion for her they are both suffering because of it. End of spoilers. Both young actors are good in their roles but somehow I found their names, Camille and Sullivan as too contrived and in their way too literary and this niggled. Visually the film is superb adding beauty to the visual beauty of the two lovers. Fortunately a Danish man comes into the film, and his older time worn face put a harder edge on this young perfection, and without saying why so as not to spoil the impact of his presence he balances a lot out and leads towards what we all call the reality of life. Love showed her intelligence and clear sightedness in not making him an outer ideal. I will watch this film again because it shows how deeply romantic love can scar, and hints that once we have known it we never forget. And that it can sour the rest of our lives. That is my take on this film and others will have less serious feelings about what they have just seen. In short Mia Hansen-Love is one of the finest directors France has, and long will she continue to make cinema that is against the grain of a lot of rubbish that has become a world wide necessity.

Louis Garrel recently made his first feature film as director, Le Petit Tailleur, in an interview afterwards he admitted that his film was of a Paris that did not exist anymore, where the young went to the theatre to see Kleist. His film, as this one, contains a nostalgia for the New Wave. This is tacitly admitted in Goodbye First Love when Sullivan mentions that he went to a party in the suburbs where kids went to have sex and take drugs, a piece of shrapnel that doesn't fit in the jigsaw of this movie. The young of the developed world live with their eyes burnt out.

Goodbye First Love tells the story of Camille, in love with Sullivan, and how she copes with losing that love and moving on with her life. There's something pristine about the way that young animals love and lust together, narcotic and somewhat illusory, but on the threshold of paradise; and actually the most astonishing part of the film practically occurs in an Eden. One its successes is the casting of two actors who have an obvious sexual compatibility, which lends credibility to the treatment.

Mature love comes, but lies in the cradle of shared creativity and mutual respect, which should represent a superannuation of first love; but flesh is not just. For Camille, riding on the pannier rack of Sullivan's bicycle and grasping his body will always be the seed of her crystal.

Goodbye First Love, by the way, is an incredible aesthetic treat (my favourite part may well have been when the two rake over the ashes of their love, lying together likes ravens in a shattered tower, all a creation of capturing colour carefully). I felt privileged to have watched it, to have been let inside what's a meagerly-camouflaged auto-biography from Mia Hansen-Løve. I may well love and be loved back one day, but it won't be the Hamelin song that Mia has let me see, and I'm grateful to her for this facsimile.