 | Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality. |
Bursting onto the screen in a blast of buzzing power pop, ‘Girlhood’, the Cannes Directors' Fortnight opening film from Director Celine Sciamma is marked from the outset by its energetic embrace of the complexity and contradictions of underprivileged, urban teenage life.
Sciamma’s ‘Girlhood’ is a wonderful examination of French girl gang culture ‘Girlhood’. Her previous films ‘Water Lillies’ and ‘Tomboy’ both received rave reviews for their examination of youth and sexuality; ‘Girlhood’ continues this rich vein of understanding. The director's third feature confirms mastery over the coming-of-age drama, a genre too often reduced to its simplest ingredients. As in ‘Water Lilies’ and ‘Tomboy’ before this, Sciamma pushes past superficial anthropological study to deliver a vital, non judgmental character study, this time following 16-year-old Marieme as she seeks her path amid a girl gang (Bande de Filles.)
Heading up an all-black cast, Karidja Touré plays subdued teen Marieme, a low-key girl who lives in a lower class Paris neighbourhood with her warring parents and younger sister. The opportunity arrives for her to come out of her shell when a trio of local teens coax her into their gang, luring her with the promise of cute boys.
Choosing to locate her story in these drab, socio-economically depressed surroundings and to tell it through the eyes of a young black girl is not only a departure for Sciamma whose previously equally well-observed coming of age tales have played out in mostly white middle class settings, but a risk, and yet it pays off in absolutely triumphant fashion. Clearly divided into four distinct sections, ‘Girlhood’ illustrates the circumstances leading up to several major turning points for Marieme, who lives in the projects in northwest Paris and desperately wants to sort out her adult persona.
Sciamma marks each new transition in her behaviour with a telling fade to black, tracking her emerging consciousness in bursts of interconnected experiences that avoid forcing her process into a single tidy narrative.
Though ‘Girlhood’ deals with race by implication, its main line of inquiry is universal (which, ironically, makes it something of anomaly among movies exclusively focused on minorities). Marieme's decisions alternate from terrible and destructive to heroic, but it's never entirely clear which way she'll take it. By exploring the various intersections between forms of oppression and discrimination, Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality.
Sciamma’s ‘Girlhood’ is a wonderful examination of French girl gang culture ‘Girlhood’. Her previous films ‘Water Lillies’ and ‘Tomboy’ both received rave reviews for their examination of youth and sexuality; ‘Girlhood’ continues this rich vein of understanding. The director's third feature confirms mastery over the coming-of-age drama, a genre too often reduced to its simplest ingredients. As in ‘Water Lilies’ and ‘Tomboy’ before this, Sciamma pushes past superficial anthropological study to deliver a vital, non judgmental character study, this time following 16-year-old Marieme as she seeks her path amid a girl gang (Bande de Filles.)
Heading up an all-black cast, Karidja Touré plays subdued teen Marieme, a low-key girl who lives in a lower class Paris neighbourhood with her warring parents and younger sister. The opportunity arrives for her to come out of her shell when a trio of local teens coax her into their gang, luring her with the promise of cute boys.
Choosing to locate her story in these drab, socio-economically depressed surroundings and to tell it through the eyes of a young black girl is not only a departure for Sciamma whose previously equally well-observed coming of age tales have played out in mostly white middle class settings, but a risk, and yet it pays off in absolutely triumphant fashion. Clearly divided into four distinct sections, ‘Girlhood’ illustrates the circumstances leading up to several major turning points for Marieme, who lives in the projects in northwest Paris and desperately wants to sort out her adult persona.
Sciamma marks each new transition in her behaviour with a telling fade to black, tracking her emerging consciousness in bursts of interconnected experiences that avoid forcing her process into a single tidy narrative.
Though ‘Girlhood’ deals with race by implication, its main line of inquiry is universal (which, ironically, makes it something of anomaly among movies exclusively focused on minorities). Marieme's decisions alternate from terrible and destructive to heroic, but it's never entirely clear which way she'll take it. By exploring the various intersections between forms of oppression and discrimination, Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality.
