Bande de filles

The film follows the life of a teen growing up in a rough suburb of Paris. The technic on display is solid, creating strong visual motifs that carry and modulate throughout the film. The director likes showing characters in groups, dominating the frame. The film understands the attraction of a posse to a person not fully confident or formed, and communicates it soundly. She contrasts these images with the more personal shots of people alone, lost. These shots are rare, and really work all the better for it. A two-shot is also in use, but also frequent. There is a dissonance, something not fully confident about these shots, showing the heroine's inability to fully be herself and complete with just one person.

While the visual strategy of the film is sound, it also comes off as somewhat simplified. There is only so much you can tell the viewer with a specific shot structure. And one of the things that stays bland is the main character. She never seem to come together as a person, and while thematically it makes perfect sense, it feel frustrating to watch a film that ask you to follow a progression, only to not get to see any kind of payoff. The development is really minimal, with most of the broad changes happening when we're not around.

Overall, the filmmaking kept me interested moment to moment, and the film does take bold turns in order to take the story and character into different places. But the characters leave a lot to be desired and I just never got into the main character arc.