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“Summer of 85” is as moody and reckless as its teenage lovers

François Ozon’s “Summer of 85” feels like it’s juggling three different films in markedly different registers over the course of its 100-minutes runtime. The central one, which the film’s buoyant poster shows, is a breezy, sensuous teen romance that comes to us by way of a crime drama that pivots into a kind of coming-of-age class drama. There’s a lot going on here, and one could make an argument that Ozon’s inclination to mine the drama for the highest level of chaos might be a natural entry point for a protagonist who is as much mercurial as the film that’s built around him.

There’s no argument that Ozon, who writes and directs “Summer of 85”, is most interested in the teenage-romantic romp that takes up about a third of the story. It’s the most confident section of the film, the most carefully filtered through Hichame Alaouié’s sunny camera, and one that’s most etched into my memory. Plot details are almost nebulous; the mood and atmosphere are everything. It’s a “no plot just vibes” perspective of young romance that gets by on its earnestness. But even the burgeoning friends-to-lovers trope requires some plotting to hang itself on.

The temporal beginning of the tale is at the beach when the teenaged Alexis capsizes his boat and is saved by the suave David. Their meeting is one for the ages, or at least that summer, and the romantic sparks begin the story proper. But that moment, at the beginning of the story, is not really where we meet the film. We are introduced, first, to an older, more jaded, Alexis, who has committed a crime and is facing punishment. The film is constructed as memories of that summer, told in flashbacks as the crime-narrative frames the story to come.

Ozon’s title is an unfortunately flattened change from the title of Aidan Chambers’ novel, “Dance On My Grave”, that it’s based on. Early on, as teenaged hormones give way to something resembling love, David and Alexis pledge that whenever they die, the surviving partner will pledge to dance on the other’s grave. To call this a bad omen feels like an understatement. By this point Alexis has announced, in the “present” that he’s been accused of something really terrible. So, the summer vibes give way to something more anxious and foreboding.

As the saying goes - first comes love, then comes jealousy…? Capriciousness is endemic to teenage love and David’s worldly charms turn from sensual to sour soon enough, and the resulting tragedy of young love that congeals turns from sad to fateful soon enough. Unfortunate for the film, the thrilling summer vibes begin to congeal long before the last swerve of the plot. Fickle teen romance is canon in media but Ozon can’t quite thread the shift from reckless life to reckless indifference in young lovers. Hewing so close to Alexis’s perspective, “Summer of 85” observes David as a mere cypher.

Ozon understands him enough for us to be seduced by him. And Benjamin Voisin is natural at intimating desirability in ways that legitimise Alexis’ frenetic interest. But Ozon’s reading of David isn’t giving much in the way of clarity. Félix Lefebvre is doing a lot to make the many iterations of Alexis work, but he’s best when allowed to work in a smaller register opposite Voisin. It’s one thing for young romance to be fickle but in a through-line requiring us to commit to the recklessness, “Summer of 85” feels a bit too guilty of hedging its bets.

At a point in the second half of the film, everything seems to be working in different registers. As the romance builds, Ozon ambivalently explores undertones of class consciousness. Alexis is young and working class, David is somewhere in the middle-class, living with his newly widowed mother who owns a business. Alexis begins working there, which complicates the relationship. But all notions of coming-of-age awareness feel too incongruous. Alaouié’s cinematography is so sunny and lush that every moment feels too alert and insouciant to be really tragic. This 1980s world looks like a brightly-tinted and summery dreamscape. You can smell the sweat. And, there’s something compelling about its approach to gay romance that’s couched in casualness rather than anything serious or urgent. But the results are mixed.

The frame narrative working towards the relegation of a crime is flat-footedly tedious, especially with its fitful starts and stops at engaging with class issues that the breezy summer romance angle nodded to with anxiety. By this time the summer romance has already given way to the shrill account of love gone sour that is so overwrought it almost upends the chemistry of the two leads.

But even as it dances itself off a cliff, Ozon’s commitment to atmosphere feels invigorating. It’s a chaotic paradox in many ways. The film nods at the complications of sexuality but then loses its nerves. It briefly contemplates issues of class before abandoning it for something flimsier. It never reaches the heights it’s trying to scale, but it has too many moments of keen awareness to dismiss. It’s also so ambivalently intent on committing to its own ludicrousness that its momentum never falters even when it skews off course.

It’s the sensation of overwhelming carelessness that rings most true. Even in the face of real-world tragedies and worrisome inclinations, these Alexis and David are too young to really take stock of things like forever and indelible effects of youthful mistakes. Are they naïve or just incredibly callous? Who can tell? The sheen of superficiality that seems to gloss everything makes sense when we consider how the illusion of youth makes every hurt feel ephemeral. Frustrating. But beguiling. And pretty to watch. It’s a summer-tale at its best and worst. The emotions won’t last but the vibes give some warmth while they last.

Summer of 85 is available for rent and purchase on Prime Video and other platforms

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2021-06-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://epaper.stabroeknews.com/article/281921661005293

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