Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
I remembered finding Poison familiar in its general subject matter (a 14-year-old girl’s first encounters with sex and death), but precise in its handling of character and place. It was, in short, a solid debut, demonstrating a firm grasp of film form and paying homage (perhaps a bit too obviously) to some cinematic role models. Its greatest weakness, like so many first films, was a fear of taking risks, but this is understandable. When making a first impression, most people would prefer modest success over full-fledged failure. Unfortunately, modest debut films from other countries rarely play in the U.S. outside of festivals; and sure enough, Poison didn’t return to Chicago. But it gave me hope for what Quillévéré would do next, and Suzanne fulfilled those hopes to some extent.
Like Poison, Suzanne can feel derivative of other recent French cinema. Hansen-Løve’s storytelling breakthroughs cast a large shadow over the picture, as do the deceptive formlessness of Maurice Pialat (Loulou, A Nos Amours), the music-inspired editing patterns of Claire Denis and Olivier Assayas, and André Téchiné’s love of complex, self-contradicting characters. Yet Quillévéré doesn’t seem as enslaved to her models this time around—she seems to be working through them and slowly establishing her own voice. The most distinctive aspect of Suzanne is the film’s commitment to anticlimax. There’s never an epiphanic moment that convinces the heroine to stop screwing up her life; the world changes but she stays the same.
