Another film review post…I just finished watching a romantic French film called Summertime (La Bellle Saison) directed by Catherine Corsini. The soundtrack and beautiful scenery complement the narrative and fine acting by Cécile de France and Izïa Higelin.
They play women from different backgrounds who fall in love. Izïa Higelin plays Delphine who works on her family’s farm. Cécile de France plays a language teacher in Paris.
A short film called Violet directed by Chris and Maddie Whiteside deals with a young girl raised by strict Christian parents in Northern Ireland who is struggling with her sexuality and feelings for another girl.
The male perspective on lesbian love affairs might not be terribly pertinent, but I’ll give it a go. Summertime is set in the 1970s when the struggle for sexual equality in Western Europe was just getting started. By contrast, Violet is set in modern-day Northern Ireland that still has antiquated views on sexuality, a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage.
Lesbian sex scenes are often a turn on for some male viewers, but to leave out that side of a passionate love affair on-screen would dilute the narrative. Summertime has scenes of full-frontal nudity that express the sense of freedom that both women are campaigning for and the love they can only express discreetly in rural France.
Violet has the young women discovered in flagrante and the father’ s horror at this sinful behaviour in his own house. This becomes the crunch point between his morality and his daughter’s. Some nice special effects emphasise the strength of religious belief and the power of supernatural superstition. This film is more about a young girl’s difficulty reconciling her strict religious upbringing with her own sexual awakening than a woman who is aware of her sexuality but is loathe to come out because of small-town prejudice.
odespinner 