Direction: Charlotte Le Bon
Country: Canada / France
Falcon Lake is a successful adaptation of Bastien Vivès’ 2017 graphic novel Une Soeur by Canadian actor-turned-director Charlotte Le Bon. She moved the original story from Ile aux Moines in Brittany to Quebec, and shot a sweet, endearing tale of teenage love and ghosts in 16mm.
We can almost smell the air of summer, when the extroverted 16-year-old Chloé (Sara Montpetit) and the timid Bastien (Joseph Engel), who is about to turn 14, wander in the surroundings of the remote lake cabin where their parents took them to spend the vacations. Whereas the former smokes, drinks, and dances with friends in parties, the latter is still locked in his teenage shell. Both will experience the excitement, anxieties and frustrations of an immature first love, and deal with the natural dilemmas that arise from there.
With the collaboration of François Choquet on the screenplay, Le Bon signs a remarkable first feature that feels acutely genuine and unique. Demonstrating a charming sense of storytelling, she directs the young actors with confidence, assuring that the story subtly progresses with a sensitive and melancholy atmosphere.
This sort of works like an ode to that time in our lives when we still paid more attention to impulses than consequences. The talent of the young actors is obvious as they reflect teen life and confused feelings with impressive accuracy. In recent times, rarely the patterned behaviors of this age have been so well embodied in a coming-of-age drama that, in this case, is mildly stimulated by an understated supernatural dimension.
