Tomboy reviews
Review by on 18 Sep 2011
At the Q&A after the opening night screening of TOMBOY, director Céline Sciamma described the simple initial idea for her film as ‘a little girl pretends to be a little boy’. It sounds like a great premise for a short film, but all the emotional complexities and sweet humour in such a situation in fact sustain a beautiful feature film.
Sciamma wrote as well as directed the film, and her strong screenplay is complemented by the child actors’ improvisation. Zoé Héran is perfectly cast as the tomboy protagonist, with a prepubescent androgyny that makes the charade completely convincing to both the other characters and the audience. Malonn Lévana was also a great find as her little sister, adding much of the humour that makes TOMBOY such a sweet film. There are many memorable scenes, particularly between these sisters, which often simply depict everyday activities and games of children, but they are improvised and shot to create tender moments.
The style of compassionate observation is reminiscent of Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim, 2008), another quiet sensory portrait of two young sisters’ relationship. Tomboy pulls you into a child’s world, so you can even almost smell the bubblegum that the kids are chewing in a game of truth or dare. But the film captures experiences not unique to childhood, like awkwardness in budding relationships, or anxiety created by a lie that’s got out of hand. With the writing and production of the film completed in just three months on a low budget, this is a particularly impressive achievement.
Claire Henry
Sciamma wrote as well as directed the film, and her strong screenplay is complemented by the child actors’ improvisation. Zoé Héran is perfectly cast as the tomboy protagonist, with a prepubescent androgyny that makes the charade completely convincing to both the other characters and the audience. Malonn Lévana was also a great find as her little sister, adding much of the humour that makes TOMBOY such a sweet film. There are many memorable scenes, particularly between these sisters, which often simply depict everyday activities and games of children, but they are improvised and shot to create tender moments.
The style of compassionate observation is reminiscent of Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim, 2008), another quiet sensory portrait of two young sisters’ relationship. Tomboy pulls you into a child’s world, so you can even almost smell the bubblegum that the kids are chewing in a game of truth or dare. But the film captures experiences not unique to childhood, like awkwardness in budding relationships, or anxiety created by a lie that’s got out of hand. With the writing and production of the film completed in just three months on a low budget, this is a particularly impressive achievement.
Claire Henry
Review by on 16 Sep 2011
This film encapsulates so much about childhood that, one imagines, is unlikely to change (or to have changed from when Céline Sciamma was a child): pretending / pretence (that one is stronger / cleverer than one is or that one's parents have fascinating jobs or large amounts of money); knowing that something will not work out, but not caring to think it through; a sense of foreboding when something that has to happen is being put off; being surprised; humiliation; secrets (and secret hiding-places); threatening to tell one's mother or making a deal not to tell; being confronted with what one has done, etc.
Incidentally, the film has as its centre a girl who can convincingly pass herself off as a boy (sometimes with prosthetic help!), who does so, attracted to the group of boys seen near the outset of living in a new house, and proving to be as good a footballer and to match their physical strength in other respects. It really does not matter why she does this, what she thinks will happen when she has to join the fourth grade, or even that it may - or may not - be read as a desire to be a boy (and later a man), rather than accepted as one.
I think the latter, that Laure hasn't thought it through, but doesn't want to face what Lisa was told when she wanted to play football, that she thinks. She doesn't think through what deceiving Lisa will do to her feelings, she just - without much heed to the consequences, except when she might have been caught out squatting to urinate and wets her shorts - sets out to be a boy. She does it, and the way that she draws Jeanne into the whole affair is utterly engaging, as are the scenes in which they have fun together outside Laure's plans. As I said, so many scenes that capture the essence of childhood and the childlike, with the issue of the particular path that Laure is following as Mikael very much secondary for me.
Incidentally, the film has as its centre a girl who can convincingly pass herself off as a boy (sometimes with prosthetic help!), who does so, attracted to the group of boys seen near the outset of living in a new house, and proving to be as good a footballer and to match their physical strength in other respects. It really does not matter why she does this, what she thinks will happen when she has to join the fourth grade, or even that it may - or may not - be read as a desire to be a boy (and later a man), rather than accepted as one.
I think the latter, that Laure hasn't thought it through, but doesn't want to face what Lisa was told when she wanted to play football, that she thinks. She doesn't think through what deceiving Lisa will do to her feelings, she just - without much heed to the consequences, except when she might have been caught out squatting to urinate and wets her shorts - sets out to be a boy. She does it, and the way that she draws Jeanne into the whole affair is utterly engaging, as are the scenes in which they have fun together outside Laure's plans. As I said, so many scenes that capture the essence of childhood and the childlike, with the issue of the particular path that Laure is following as Mikael very much secondary for me.
