Rarely has a film had such an extraordinary output. Tried at the end of winter to compete in the Cannes Festival, Summer 85 , François Ozon's new film is the first to be released, this Tuesday July 14, with the Cannes 2020 label. The story of a summer passion that is very timely to raise the temperature in the freshly deconfigured rooms. What if Summer 85 was the film of summer 2020?
Because it's a teenage love story
Summer 85 is first and foremost the story of a romantic encounter, with desire and great physical and sentimental impulses. All things that may have been missing during the confinement and which can only be a pleasure to see in this unconfined period. Eté 85 tells a beautiful story from which we emerge upset, with a tight heart, a universal story, as all adolescents know and as all adults have known. “This story opposes two conceptions of love, explains François Ozon to 20 Minutes . One very passionate, very possessive, which is that of Alex, that of the first time. And the other freer, more epicurean and wild, which is that of David. The attraction of these two opposite poles is what allows sparks to be produced. "
Because this story is not just homosexual
Because this film about adolescence has an initiatory value. It is about the birth of a desire and a passion on the one hand, pleasures and emotion on the other, but also disillusionment and regret. A universal story, because the fact that it concerns two boys has no bearing. Summer 85 does not "deal" with homosexuality, even if the main romantic relationship mentioned in the film is. "I do not make a very gendered cinema", specifies François Ozon. Besides, one of the two boys is just as attracted to boys as to girls ...
Because it's a genre film
The love story between two 16 and 18 year old boys quickly takes the form of a thriller with a crime, tears and blood. There is also talk of a corpse, from the start of the film. The filmmaker develops a real social context, with family antagonisms, action scenes with rescue at sea and motorcycle trips, suspense and twists and turns. And then it's also a period film, a film in costumes ... "We find a whole dress tradition," confirms François Ozon; the jeans and bandanas that everyone wore at the time because it came from the United States, the music that we listened to at the time, the dance very connoted in the 1980s and even the flirting from before the time of AIDS, spontaneous, joyful… ”
Because it's a nostalgic film
The film summons memories. Those of François Ozon, who in 1985 had discovered Aidan Chambers' novel La Danse du coucou , of which Eté 85 is adapted, when he began to make films, short films, at the same age as those of characters. “At the time, I would not necessarily have had the right distance to tell this story as well as possible. I started to make short films and it was only their romantic relationship that interested me. There, with time and maturity, the other films I have made, I knew that I would finally know how to tell it. But also of all the nostalgic people of the 1980s, and there are many of them today, including in the generation of millennials who discover that we could listen to well-dancing music, with headphones, on square cassettes.
Because it's summer and the film takes place in summer
This was also the case with Eric Rohmer's Summer Tale , with Melvil Poupaud, who we find as a teacher of letters in Summer 85 ... "Rohmer was my professor at the university," says François Ozon. So when we make a summer film, inevitably we think of Pauline at the beach , Claire's knee , the Summer tale … he made a lot of films in summer. Because in summer there are always things happening. We discover things that are at once sentimental, erotic, it's also a way for a filmmaker to film the bodies of actors and actresses, because everyone is in a swimsuit. There is something of desire, and then the cinema, it is made of desire. I love being in the tradition of this filmmaker whom I love very much. "
Because it's a film that gives faith back to cinema
It is a film that would have had its place in Cannes, that we could have found in the charts and that will be talked about, and not only this week for its theatrical release. Because it is a film that feels good, that gives back faith in cinema, especially after being deprived of real creations for more than three months. "Releasing it now was a real risk for the distributor, because we didn't know what it would be for cinema attendance, but at the same time I have the impression that there is an appetite , notes François Ozon. I feel like people are fed up watching TV series or movies on their computer screens. They want to go back to the theaters. And even if there is still a fear, I think that desire will come back ... ”A desire as intense as the one the filmmaker translates so well in his film.
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- Adolescence
- Homosexuality
- Cinema outings
- Cinema
- François ozon