Verano del 85

Summary

This film about a passionate youthful gay romance (un amor fou) once again shows us Ozon's ability to combine genres and his proverbial narrative fluidity and addresses one of his most frequent topics: the insurmountable distance mediated by the point of view between the story and the elusive reality and between the perception we have of others and their true nature.

Review

Alexis (Félix Lefebvre) is a 16-year-old boy who has recently lived with his family in a seaside resort on the Normandy coast. When he goes sailing with a sailboat, he meets David (Benjamin Voisin), a young man who lives with his mother (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) in the area. The meeting gives rise to a romance between the two.

As with many François Ozon films, talking about them implies much more than referring to his anecdote. But we can start there.

Right from its introduction, Summer of 85 shows us Alexis at a point after the romance, engaged in a situation that could lead to prosecution linked to David's death. This time will alternate with that of romance, which turns the film partially into a police enigma that as such sustains his interest.

But it is love fou that is the main object of the narration, which proceeds with Ozon's usual fluidity, with its fair doses of dialogues and images, and with a colorful summer palette of eighties texture, delivered to the beauty and charisma of the protagonists, with that ease of French cinema when it comes to showing bodies and desire.

But we said that Summer of 85 is much more than his anecdote about a passionate coming of age: it is an essay on the story itself and its relationship with reality. Because, as happened in Dans la maison and other films by the director, the point of view takes on fundamental relevance. And the point of view is that of Alexis, since the voiceover and what the film shows correspond to the story he makes of his romance; it is his version of the facts and his subjectivity that are brought into play and staged. It is love fou, with his passion, his idealizations, his pacts, his asymmetries, his projections, his ways of processing loss and mourning, his perverse elements, in the voice of Alexis; the loving object/subject as salvation and as condemnation. And this also determines what fatally remains off screen (and out of narrative control), plunging Alexis and the viewer into impotence and despair. There is in Alexis's story a component of nostalgia that the director places in the abyss with nostalgia about an entire era.

In this way, a frequent topic in Ozon's cinema is staged - the elusive nature of reality and its insurmountable distance from the story - and with French cinema in general: the literary (in this case Alexis's notes) as articulator of a cinematographic story. The subjectivity permeating the story, but also and fundamentally, the perception of the loved one.

There is something joyous and fresh about this film that reminds us of Call Me By Your Name and the We Are Who We Are series, both by Luca Guadagnino (even Voisin seems like a more protean version of Chalamet) and also Chabrolian in the way he articulates the drama with the thriller.

This one left me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it's a very dreamy gay romance. However, it then slaps you with the cold reality of just how unromantic gays can sometimes be. It manages to be both surreal, yet a little too real.

It begins so wonderfully sweet, even if it is a bit carnal. It would've been nicer if there had been more compassion and affection. Perhaps, that's partly what leads to where it ultimately goes? Perhaps, it was doomed from the start. I guess, we're supposed to feel sorry for what happens to the protagonist? However, I'm left feeling as though he should've handled it better. While his reaction is understandable, it was a little selfish and unfair. He kinda deserves what happened.

It does manage to be a very watchable movie. It has some real dream-like quality. The boys are quite fetching, as well. I'd recommend it.

The boys meet while separately out boating and sixteen year old Alexis falls in love immediately with eighteen year old David. We know from the start that the relationship is doomed but we obviously don't know how and why. Hints and fragments emerge from the text - and it is a text. Alex is writing the events of the six week romance as a way of explaining his criminal actions to a social worker.

The running length of the film whirls past just as the summer romance between the lads does. During the affair, things are revealed that start to show that all is not well - David goes back to the drunk guy they rescued, he hints at a deeper relationship with the literature teacher, mum is clearly worried about him and asks his younger friend to keep an eye on him, it turns out the boat was not dealt with.

Alex is blind to it all and is blissfully happy in his first proper love affair. They do things young besotted teenagers do - drink, go to fairgrounds, have punch ups with rival guys, drive dangerously on the Suzuki. They exchange kisses and embraces and make love while David's mum is doped up on sleeping pills.

It all comes crashing down and when it does, the events take a gruesome and tragic turn of events. Alex is in trouble. He had made David a promise he thought he would not have to keep either at all or for many years but is now obliged to carry it out. On the way to this, he's helped by his English acquaintance who offers the apercu that he was in love with an idea and not the person. It's the definition of puppy love.

Frantic typing feverishly results in clarity both for David and the court and his story ends as far as the film is concerned but carries on beyond its ending with another boat ride; our imaginations can envisage the course of his life now that he's learnt a lesson and is a bit wiser to the ways of the world.

As always, Ozon's storytelling is masterful as is the cinematography. The choice of music was perfect. "In between days" by The Cure framed the film and I can't imagine anything more apt especially once the film was complete.

The two leads played their parts fantastically. The supporting cast were not fleshed out but didn't need to be. Their characters were recognisable cliches that could be found in a French provincial town nearly forty years ago and simply drove the plot along.

I do recommend this film.

In the title summer, on a beach town, two teenage boys meet while sailing and fall in love. The story is told mostly by way of an essay that recounts the events of the summer, which allows for selective disclosures (or not). Right at the start of the film, we know something bad has happened, but it takes most of the movie to find out what and why.

The young actors are natural, and the cinematography is gorgeous. Being set in 1985, I suppose it can't end in "getting married and living happily ever after", but there is maturity and hope.

Normandy, 1985. Alexis and David begin an unlikely friendship after an incident at sea. The story telling is interesting, François Ozon style, the typical plot to appeal for feelings and emotions, but that sometimes (as is the case in this film) falls too much into the melodramatic. There's nothing mind blowing, or double-sided characters, it is a simple summer love story, where there's a side of innocence and illusion about the first love to contrast with a rebellious and non-conformist side, of fleeting relationships. The aesthetics and sonority perfectly captures the 80's vibe, in a fantastic 16mm film. Those who liked 'Call Me by Your Name' will certainly like 'Été 85', given the similarities and inspirations that the director sought after Luca Guadagnino's great success. The protagonists have talent, and above all, chemistry, essential for a film of this kind to work. It's a nice way to end the (strange) summer of 2020.