There’s this cabin deep in the woods. There is also this marshy lake flanked by a dead tree with a bristling trunk. There is, finally, this multitude of paths and paths which sink into the dark forest without you ever seeing the end. All that’s missing in this typical panorama is a masked maniac and a few horny teenagers. Unveiled at Cannes then presented at TIFF and at the Festival du nouveau cinema, Falcon Lake there are no killers, but the young people are there. Presenting the story of a first love in a visual setting reminiscent of a horror film: you had to think about it. However, with this first feature film, Charlotte Le Bon bewitches.
Said cabin, which turns out to be, at least during the day, a rather charming chalet, is in this case occupied by Bastien, 13, almost 14, he insists (Joseph Engel), his youngest Titi (Thomas Laperrière) , and their parents (Monia Chokri and Arthur Igual). The place belongs to a friend of the couple (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman), she also presents with her daughter Chloé (Sara Montpetit), 16 years old. The surly attitude, Chloe applies to let it be known that she disapproves of the intrusion. This does not prevent Bastien from having, as soon as he sees her, a crush on her.
On the narrative level, the sequel essentially consists of a waltz of rapprochements and estrangements. From alcoholic and smoking transgressions to complicity that settles modestly, the differences between Bastien and Chloé fade as unexpected similarities emerge.
Naturally introverted, Bastien observes the surrounding world and nourishes this rich inner universe which is his. A bit like Harold in the classic Harold and Maude (Harold and Maude), Chloé is fascinated by death and likes to recall that a boy once drowned in the lake next to the property. Bastien needs us to see him, to talk to him. Chloe needs to confide. At first glance ill-matched, they are actually, at this pivotal moment in their existence, perfect for each other.
I wanted it to feel like we were inside someone’s head, revisiting their memories.
The dramatic tension arises, here and there, when two older guys (Anthony Therrien and Pierre-Luc Lafontaine) show up pretending to be interested in Chloé, and vice versa. In these scenes, Chloé and the newcomers may include him in their discussions and activities, it’s as if Bastien became invisible, hence the resentment that we feel welling up in him.
Closely observed, these passages turn out, however, to be a bit repetitive. Or perhaps it is simply due to the fact that the sequences exclusively featuring Joseph Engel and Sara Montpetit constitute a rather remarkable succession of moments of grace.
nostalgic cachet
Even more than an initiatory love story, Falcon Lake is an atmospheric film. With remarkable audacity — and assurance — Charlotte Le Bon opposes this cheerful and sunny genre with a multitude of nocturnal scenes and sometimes unusual, sometimes sinister compositions.
In a beautiful tribute to the splendid A Ghost Story (A ghost story), by David Lowery, Chloé has fun taking pictures of a Bastien covered in a white sheet and standing near the dead tree already mentioned (a nod to Ivan’s childhoodby Andrei Tarkovsky)…
Filmed in Super 16, which immediately gives the film a retro, nostalgic, Falcon Lake unfolds almost like a dream, even a reminiscence. Moreover, in an interview, the filmmaker explained to us: “I wanted it to feel like we were in someone’s head, revisiting their memories. »
This is exactly the effect produced. And the more one thinks about this memorial dimension of the film, the more the formal approach favored by Charlotte Le Bon, which summons many visual codes specific to horror, seems self-evident.
In fact, the events that we remember belong to the past: they are no more. And the same goes for people: people who are remembered, whether they are still alive or not, do not exist. precisely so only in memory. Wouldn’t it therefore be correct to say that memories are, by their very nature, populated by ghosts?