Camille Rewinds (2012)

Noemie Lvovsky is a fully paid-up member of what is, for me, a very elite group who cannot be feted highly enough; French female directors, virtually all of whom - Danielle Thompson, Eleanore Faucher, Alexander Leclerc also write or co-write their own screenplays plus some - Nicole Garcia, Agnes Joui, Valerie Lemercier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - are actually triple threats inasmuch as they are happy to direct themselves acting in self- penned screenplays, whilst still others like Tony Marshall, Ann Fontaine, Marion Vernoux, have been and/or are still acting for other directors. I should perhaps add that all of the above are content to turn out 'mainstream' films leaving the 'intellectual' fodder to the likes of Marguerite Duras, Clair Denis and other poster girls of the Academic-Pseud axis. Camille Redouble marks the first time Lvovsky has directed herself in her own screenplay - though she has, of course, acted in screenplays she has co-written with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - and it is a tour de force. There's nothing exactly new about Time Travel in film but Lvovsky employs it in a definite positive way so that whilst she is unable to change the past and prevent her mothers' untimely and unexpected heart attack she is able to say important things to her mother. A very worthy addition to the ranks of the triple-threat French female.

The first hour of the movie is pretty enjoyable, and even though the time travel theme has been over used, this melancholic story, to which anyone can relate to, is still touching.Unfortunately, the second hour is much less glorious. The script badly flounders and doesn't manage to find a much needed second wind. The situations are under exploited, the characters don't evolve, there are no stakes or consequences, and the plot's final outcome suggests that everything is fate-related: what is then the point of the movie if nothing could have been altered ?The disappointment is proportional to the high expectations caused by the raving critics.

8/10The thing that makes this '2nd chance'-time travel plot a really good story is the lead's resistance to repeating the past - in this I cheered her on and wished for the best, because she tries so very hard to avoid the bad things from her adult life and focuses on making the good things happen, most importantly her pregnancy. Watching her come to terms with the things, she realizes she cannot change - most of all her own feelings - is watching an immature adult finally take on adulthood.That she is also never overly smart, ie. exploiting her superior knowledge of events or experience of life lived, makes her presence in her past one of watching consciousness and self confidence at play. One can imagine oneself being utterly certain about events, as if one had lived them before - and willing to pay the price of certainty. I don't care about the (surprisingly few) little inconsistencies in the plot - all that matters is the lead being true to her heart. And I was genuinely relieved (if not surprised) that she lets go of trying to fight her heart and starts listening to it, rather than hiding in a bottle. This message runs through the movie, even to the quoting of the 12 step confirmation: "... and the wisdom to know the difference." It is not moralizing, but there appears to be a need to bring it across. If you come away with only the conclusion that there is no love at the bottom of a bottle, you have probably made the director happy. Apart from this I really enjoyed the director-lead in her roles - she shone, when she played 16, and looked her real age, when she let the energy evaporate, and then managed to merge the two in the final scenes. Good energy manifestation!In the tradition of French movies, it is with more than a touch of poetry and focus on genuine human emotions, here the touch of lips as the deciding factor and holder of all important memories, that the movie concludes. French movies remember the body and don't focus overly on sex. Very important in Western and specifically European culture, with the present battle raging between explicitness and sensuality: Remember that the body remembers everything, and that we ARE our bodies!BTW: I DO wonder if the bicycle crash was an accident, but boy, that looked like something you don't walk away from unscathed!

Caught this film at the Sitges Film Festival, and wasn't sure what to expect. It sounded like a more serious version of 'Peggy Sue got Married' from the description, and I didn't really have any expectations for it, but I was kind of blown away a little.Although mostly a comedy, with light-hearted/comic situations as Camille returns to her teenage years, this film treated the conundrums/ paradoxes of time travel in quite a serious way at times and was actually quite thought provoking. And a tragic scenario involving Camille and her mother is set up incredibly well, so when it arrives it is just absolutely heartbreaking. Seriously, take tissues.The director/actress really gives a fantastic performance - convincing as both the bitter, washed up Camille in the future and a mix between this and the wide-eyed teenager she becomes in the past. She does a great job of juggling the comedy and dramatic moments, as both actress and director. I'm surprised never to have heard of her before, but I'm sure after this film she will receive more exposure. She also had a colourful,interesting visual style going on, not least in the extremely cool backwards slow-motion opening credits.