CAMILLE REWINDS
France, 2012, 115 minutes, Colour.
Noemie Lvovsky, Samir Guesmi, Yolande Moreau, Jean- Pierre Leaud, Denis Polydades, Matthieu Amalric.
Directed by Noemie Lvovsky.
Poor Camille. At 40, it looks as though her world is collapsing. Her marriage certainly is. Her husband, Eric, has gone off with a younger woman. Camille is left with her daughter, and a huge bout of self-pity.
She has been drinking. There is an accident. She wakes up. Lo and behold, she is 16 again.. And she is resuming her life as it was, though she knows what is to come. Will it be the same? Can she change it? Does she want to change it, despite knowing?
This serious comedy has been written and directed by Noemi Lvovsky. And she plays Camille, looking rather dowdy at 40 and, to the audiences’ eyes and her own, looking the same when she reverts to 16. There she is with her friends at school, back in the styles, the music and the would-be daring of the 80s. There she is at home, amazed to see her mother and father again, relishing the time with them but knowing when they are to die – some particularly strong pathos scenes in her last talk with her mother and her realising that she has died, again.
And Eric? Is he the insensitive middle-aged man that we have seen? Was he always like this? And will Camille fall in love with him again? Well, Eric is not so bad when young – and one of the feelings as we watch is that we wonder how he could turn out as he did and how could he treat Camille in this way.
There are some magic realism moments, especially with veteran Jean- Pierre Leaud behind the counter in a pawn shop and Denis Polydades as the teacher who reappears at the end.
All very French, though the Americans did a variation on the theme in Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married with Kathleen Turner.
Light touches, serious touches – and Camille comes back to the present, a little wiser, a little more realistic, ready to take charge of her life.
1. The title, the focus on Camille? The situation at 40? Time travel? At 15, re-living the past, changing the past? Influence in the future?
2. The French tone, style? The city, homes, work in the movies, B-movies? Parties? 2010?
3. The visualising of the past, the 1980s, look, clothes, the attention to detail, the sounds, home, school, life outside school? The musical score? The signs of the period?
4. The plausibility of time travel, possibility, explanations? The effect?
5. The portrait of Camille, the performance by the director and writer? At 40, dowdy, in the movies, her child, the clashes with Eric, his leaving, the fight and her ousting him? 25 years together? His leaving, her drinking, the party, collapsing, the puzzle of waking up in the past?
6. Waking up, hospital, nurse, her parents, looking young? At 15? Yet her look for the audience as at 40? Her behaviour, at home, the room, rediscovering the past, the relationship with her parents, knowing what was to happen, the mother and advice for the CAT scan? The treatment? Unwilling to go to school, yet going, the variety of teachers portrayed, friendly, lecherous, instructing? The discussion with the physics teacher about time machines and travel? The encounter with the watchmaker? The relationship with her friends, sharing a 15-year-old’s entertainment, dancing, singing, sex? Her telling her friends what would happen, their reaction? Wanting to avoid Eric, the encounter with him, memories of the past, the attraction, pregnancy, the birth of her daughter? Her experience in the teen years?
7. The effect, for getting some insight, thinking through the details of her past life, her reflections?
8. The end, the young and the older Camille uniting, becoming an adult, facing the future, reassessing her past? And the Professor and? Eric? And Camille’s life in the future?
