Goodbye, First Love

[JeanRZEJ]

It is always difficult to recall comparable films when the elements which most stick in my mind are as relatively unrelated and distinct as those which I recall most fondly with this film:

Frequent streams of poetic imagery - Especially in a portion toward the middle of the film where the protagonist is largely set loose from her anchoring forces and the film drifts along with her through time and age and haircuts and life choices, whereby the film cements an impression of this period by soaking up mood, color, and rhythm in a continuous stream which ends exactly when the protagonist finds another anchor.

Textured portraits of unremarkable individuals - This is a strong point of the director's previous films, but here the characters are filmed and played in such a manner that their foibles and failings can be so crushing as to be seemingly impossible to personally overcome and yet so touching as to push one to be overcome with empathy. These are the sorts of contrasts that you can't help but find when delving beyond a person's barriers, in loving those things that they do best and being taken aback at their unforeseen lacks. Especially surprising is the way I couldn't even recommend a path of change for either main character as their behavior, as troubling for themselves as it may be, seems to ingrained in their nature and in their best qualities that they are saddled with the results lest they lose all their potential for gains.

Revelatory narrative schisms - After three films this is the director's signature, and here it is achieved in so many more nuances and on such smaller and greater levels that it imbues each contrasting period with a deeper context, a more understandable contrast, and an ingenious narrative framework. This topic, as integral as it seems to be to the director's modus oprandi and as multifaceted as it is integrated here, deserves its own analysis that would be wasted in summary, but it would be a bore to talk only to myself about it.

Has anyone else seen it? I would recommend flying to go see it. It's got to be playing somewhere in the world right now.

[haqyunus]

Wow, I didn't realize that it would be that good. It only played for one week in Boston and I didn't watch it.

Now it has replaced by Darling Companion.

[jeanne_dielman]

This film was such a tedious bore. It went on and on and on. The whole story felt pointless.

Haven't seen the much acclaimed Father of My Children, which a trusted cinephile friend recommended. Maybe Mia Hansen-Løve shows more talent there than here.

[cdmc]

I personally preferred Father of My Children to Goodbye, First Love. I admit that there is a certain sensuality in both films that is very unique, but I did not particularly connect with the latter.

[Cricket]

I should probably see this again, since a lot of people seem to like it, and I do think Hansen-Løve is a genuine talent. But I didn't really care for it.

I liked The Father of My Children, though, which I thought was a film of uncommon maturity and intelligence, for such a young director. Goodbye, First Love is just as graceful and sensitive, but felt like a step backward in some ways; a little banal and almost juvenile. I thought the acting in the previous film was much stronger as well.

[JeanRZEJ]

Goodbye, First Love is about two juveniles acting juvenile, and when they grow up they act a little less juvenile but still retain their inherent dominant traits which still recreate the same frictions of their past. I don't know how it makes the film juvenile, but it's certainly one of the most sensible dynamic depictions of people that I know of. The conflicts become deflated, but the inherent issues are as sharp as ever, because the person hasn't disappeared, just evolved. In The Father of My Children she certainly de-dramatizes the aftermath of a death, but nobody really changes after the midpoint. It's a crisis, and so their mindstates are abnormal and the struggles of the past cease to matter. In that regard, while the characters certainly act mature in handling affairs, the director didn't actually do much with the characters. I feel like it's a mature situation without any canvas on which to maturely draw characters. Her first film is a better contrast, but it's a very different dynamic. It's sort of a midpoint between the two. In The Father of My Children the film's actions are driven by a much older, much more mature adult, but I don't see that the character's maturity proves the director's maturity nearly as well as the mature handling of immaturity in Goodbye, First Love.

The story is pointless in that hardly anything changes. This puts it up in such esteemed company as 'everything Thomas Pynchon ever wrote; everything Ruiz ever filmed; everything anyone ever painted; etc.' I think stories themselves are pointless, though, so it was of no importance to me. My favorite part of the film was the middle section where time imperceptibly passes, no characters are really introduced, and there are few words which are even foregrounded, let alone integral. This sequence reminded me most of the childhood segment of The Tree of Life, and more of that is what I long for most.

The director used 'story' in each of her films not to show a chain of events from beginning to end but to contrast the perception of the present with the perception of a starkly different time. What is interesting is the way this films is different: her first two films showcased the damage of trivial concerns in the long run, under different circumstances, whereas her most recent film illustrates the underlying cause of the importance laid on these trivial concerns. Instead of the things that change, it is now the few things that stay the same which move to the forefront. All in the end invite reflection on gained perspective by the viewer, but only in the most recent film is the difficulty of implementing the changes demanded by this perspective really highlighted. In this way her film is far less idealized and far more entrenched in the realities of living, and I find this a far more 'mature' display. Of course, this element is one among many, and even the way she utilizes varying degrees of narrative schism in this film is fresh and ingenious. Previously her films featured a central hard cut between periods, whereas here this period is bridged with an entirely different technique of a fluid non-expositional continuum, but elsewhere there are much smaller but equally clever schisms which spreads the formal impact of her now-mastered hard-ellipses among and between more numerous subsets, thus creating a more layered whole within which the contrasts have more referents. You can see her willingness to mess with cinematic syntax stretch into an extended scene which contrasts an individual with a couple, or a number of short scenes which display a change over time, or an ellipsis which contrasts a couple with a lonesome member of the pair. Where before the defining feature of her narrative style/formal structure was a rigid division there is now an abundance of examples of her expanded grammatical mastery. That, to me, is the mark of maturity.

[jeanne_dielman]

The story is pointless in that hardly anything changes. This puts it up in such esteemed company as 'everything Thomas Pynchon ever wrote; everything Ruiz ever filmed; everything anyone ever painted; etc.' I think stories themselves are pointless, though, so it was of no importance to me. My favorite part of the film was the middle section where time imperceptibly passes, no characters are really introduced, and there are few words which are even foregrounded, let alone integral. This sequence reminded me most of the childhood segment of The Tree of Life, and more of that is what I long for most.

I don't think characters should dramatically change in movies. I think art should mirror real life - at least to a certain extent. And in real life, we don't change. We evolve maybe a little bit, as we age over the years, but we don't really change... Our essence - who we are at 5, 15, 50, etc. - remains the same.

But yeah, the whole film felt pointless (to me) because the relationships depicted in the film felt dimensionless. I see Sullivan inadvertently dumping Camille to see the world, her sobbing hopelessly, etc, but I don't really see any of the particulars of the relationship. Why is Camille so attracted to Sullivan? Is she attracted to his "type" - the wandering, nomad type? Is the architecture professor/eventual live-in lover supposed to be the anti-thesis to Sullivan?

IF so, is there something very seductive about the nomadic type? Is the idea of unreciprocated love something alluring to Camille? Life may not offer answers to all these questions, but at the very least, I would like to know Camille, what makes her tick, and what makes her heart grow fonder. I couldn't find a peephole into Camille's mind or libido, and so I guess the whole thing felt like a pointless exercise.

[JeanRZEJ]

I don't think characters should dramatically change in movies. I think art should mirror real life - at least to a certain extent. And in real life, we don't change. We evolve maybe a little bit, as we age over the years, but we don't really change... Our essence - who we are at 5, 15, 50, etc. - remains the same.

But yeah, the whole film felt pointless (to me) because the relationships depicted in the film felt dimensionless. I see Sullivan inadvertently dumping Camille to see the world, her sobbing hopelessly, etc, but I don't really see any of the particulars of the relationship. Why is Camille so attracted to Sullivan? Is she attracted to his "type" - the wandering, nomad type? Is the architecture professor/eventual live-in lover supposed to be the anti-thesis to Sullivan?

IF so, is there something very seductive about the nomadic type? Is the idea of unreciprocated love something alluring to Camille? Life may not offer answers to all these questions, but at the very least, I would like to know Camille, what makes her tick, and what makes her heart grow fonder. I couldn't find a peephole into Camille's mind or libido, and so I guess the whole thing felt like a pointless exercise.

You have a lot of prescribed needs for art. Art exists, everything else is a discovery. I agree with everything that you say about Camille, and the picture you paint is to me of an amazing film!

[ldw]

To some, one's first love does not hold much if any great importance. For others, one's first love can obtain a sense of romanticism and idealism to such an extent that the memory of it reminds one of the regret of what has been lost. Camille is decidedly in the latter camp, one in which her world has become her boyfriend Sullivan. Sullivan loves her too but 15 year old Camille's stance that this romance is forever is suffocating to Sullivan. Camille wants to be with Sullivan at all times while Sullivan wants to spend time with friends and family. He loves Camille but he doesn't see their love as the all-consuming one that she sees it as. It is easy to see what draws Camille to Sullivan. He is nice and funny, sweet and handsome. She wants to be his and, in a sensual moment (see JeanRZEG's image) coming after a fight, she crawls to him and nuzzles her head into his shoulder.

Such love lost, where a person has lost themselves in someone else, is dangerous and the potential for self-destructiveness is there. Goodbye First Love depicts that potential but it depicts the good as well as the bad aftereffects. Camille gains drive and focus. But what of the aftereffects that are less certain. The film is smart not making it clear if Camille's romance with a teacher named Lorenz is a sign of a desire for the stability that wasn't there with Sullivan or one of true if different love. She loves Lorenz but the film sharply does not measure that love with Camille's I love him too but in a different way explanation left ambigious. As it should be for Camille herself, as with many of us, is probably not sure how she would measure it.

When Sullivan reenters the story, he is the one who seems to progressively be making Camille his everything. Yet, the heady, enthralling love that once was seems tinged with pain and differences, still not avoidable, that cannot be overcome. Camille has created a world for herself that is no longer reliant on Sullivan, something Sullivan comes to understand with the resultant jealousy and regret that is expected.

This is a genuinely great film, one that is remarkably tactile. It may be the most tactile of films since Tropical Malady. It's sensuality is mesmerizing and it captures emotional devastation with an assured sensitivity. There is not a false note with touches (Sullivan's foot on a piece of furniture, Camille's look giving away that she knows Lorenz took a peak at her journal, stones put on a blanket to hold it against the wind) that are evocative without moving into the blunt.

Films like this trust the audience to be empathetic. After all, heavy self-absorption is common for most of us at that age. Lorenz is the voice of an older person who can comprehend such feelings but believes they are to be grown out of. After all aren't they fantasy and isn't it more important to strive for being at peace with the reality of the world. It is easy to adapt Lorenz's philosophy but tellingly the divorced Lorenz is decades older than Camille which makes his own comments not so self aware. At the end, Camille is both with Lorenz and yet still in a place of solitude - swimming alone in a place of memories. While the first love will never be reconciled, it does not mean she is in a place where she has found fulfillment and peace. We are left wondering if she has which makes sense because Camille is probably wondering if she really has too.

[JeanRZEJ]

I think that scene in the image above is a perfect encapsulation of what makes the film great. Normally such a crawl would be played with some sensuous music in closeup as the girl slinks in for a kiss. Here it's silent, still, medium shot, and her crawl is a bit too far, a bit too awkward, to be totally sexy - and she goes for the hug. In her stare you can feel her great need for this love, but in her awkward crawl you can feel that she doesn't know how to cement it, how to truly let it flourish, but you can be assured that it is at least truthful by her hug, a signal of her desire for something as simple as closeness. But, then, that is part of the problem - it seems like she has the great capacity for love but without any idea what form the expression of love should take. She has no vocabulary to develop and practice this love, only the urge. I don't know that she necessarily loses this, but the mitigating factor as an adult seems to be a sense of individuality, of self-love, which propels her forward alongside rather than straight into her complementary love - but, then again, this is with a less all-consuming love. And the film isn't just about her, either - but through her particularity and the completely different sensibilities of her partners you get the sense of the great variability of ways in which the expression of love depends on personalities, on personal choices, on personal development, on the type and force of the love.

I feel like the tone of the film is perfectly suited to developing the details from which these ambivalent and nuanced impressions can spring, never cementing anything as 'universal truth' but always emphasizing the variety of types (the 'lefts' and 'rights') along with the variety of 'ups' and 'downs' inherent in such variety, be it the tiny individual emotional states or the overall picture of one's life - and because this is all achieved through the particular details you have both a thorough exploration of a non-universal particular and a subset which provides a basis for the consideration of the larger array. The depth of this dynamic cannot be fully attributed either to the particular details or the formal composition which dilates time and allows for a broader particular array, as they are wonderfully intertwined. I love it so much! I hate that it played for only a week here.

So glad you loved it, ldw! I loved your words on the film. Recalled every little sensual detail

[Aurelius]

Couldn't you have called it by its original title? It took me ages to find this thread!

I, too, loved the sensibility and sensuality of this film. And I don't get the criticism about Camille, because I thought this was a very lived in character (I also think the actress is very talented). We don't know her reasons, but we don't need to. I felt very close to her, even though she's half my age. The comparison to The Tree Of Life is apt, even if the film is quite different (a lot more dialogue, for one thing!), in that it lets life flow by, making the experience more intense (for me anyway), and also in that it has a deep understanding of its characters. Loved it!

[JeanRZEJ]

I had to look up the original title, and I can't pronounce jeunesse - so I'll never remember that title! I've been wanting to watch it again for that middle section especially, but the Fates apparently aren't fond of R1 blu rays.

[haqyunus]

The title was not generic but cliched. The original title translates into 'Young Love'.

I finally saw it after missing it when it originally opened. I liked it a lot. It is depressingly honest and beautiful. That might be as Aurelius said because we don't know why Camille is doing what she is but we can still relate or believe her. Like in my case, I can totally see myself behaving like that . My reasons might be different and now when I am older, I might be able to control myself a bit more. But boy! it can be true and it is quite painful. All consuming, all the time. Nobodies knows why we fall in love, with whom and why can't we break it off, specially at this young age. But we know how it (love) does and what are the effects.

It is beautifully lit and shot. The scenes in the homes, apartments, beaches, schools, across Europe. Of course watching French country-side is always gorgeous but I love when movie use the cities/locations as a major part of the movie. Paris (and not the traditional 'dream/fantasy one', but the suburbs and in an 'everyday' sort of way) is used so well.
The part about the movie being 'too French' and 'talky' was funny and the end-credits track by Laura Marling and Johnny Flynn was simply

[Timmer]

I mostly loved this when I saw it a few months ago. Very few films that I've seen have so perfectly captured the inexplicability of love; the way we can be unable to move past a relationship, even if all logic and sense says we should be able to to easily. When Sullivan reenters the film, you pretty much know where the film is going to go, but I was invested enough at that point to see it through. My one complaint is that I couldn't fully believe that the characters had aged; Lola Creton is very talented and hits all of the right notes as the petulant, depressed younger Camille but her performance as the older Camille seems to consist of not acting at all beyond keeping a stone face. I couldn't buy her in the role of architect, and Sullivan seemed not to have aged a single day when he reappeared.

So other than being pulled from the story by the actors' ages being painfully obvious, I'm glad I saw this film. It's got a LOT going on under the surface and I love films like that.

[haqyunus]

The age thing did distract me a bit in the overall scheme of things it didn't matter. I also liked that Sullivan was not made or portrayed as a jerk or someone at fault.

[McTeague]

Let's save this from eventual pruning for later comment.

[McTeague]

Well, I think the people who liked it in here really nailed most of the things I was planning to say, so I’ll just say I 100% agree with Jean, Idw and Au. I must add that this deals with a topic I find myself thinking a lot about: the possibility or impossibility of truly overcoming strong adolescent trauma, the most usual example of such trauma being a first love and its almost inevitable break up. I think it nails all the irrational emotions that come with it all and the mark they leave in us, how they shape us, to the point that we may not totally get rid of them. I think Jean is spot on in his observations on how the characters evolve but in their older age they struggle with the same personal traits they struggled as teenagers.

This was deeply affecting, and despite the sensuality and melancholy, it was so in a rather rough way, with no unwarranted embellishment and an uncanny way to express the real, tough emotions (and since they are rough, the movie becomes rough).

LOL it helped making it so affecting that Lola Créton (who, by the way, seems to be incredibly talented and gives my favorite leading female performance of last year) looks SO MUCH like MY first love. Well, not my first love, ‘cos I wasn’t that much in love, but my first serious relation.

[Addison de Witt]

This is a very honest and sensitive portrait of the first love.
Lola Creton is not only gorgeous but really talented. Her performance of Camille is natural and very lively.
Other than the problem that I never bought that the characters had really aged 10 years (lol, did the director really care about?) I found it a very lovely film and makes me want to discover the rest of the filmography of Hansen-Love.