In her first full-length feature, Louise Hémon presents L’engloutie (The Girl in the Snow). A selection in the Quinzaine des Cineastes of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Hémon designs a vibey film. She narrates the story of Aimée (Galatea Bellugi), a volunteer teacher from an unspecified big French city. She arrives in the village near the French Alps during a heavy snowstorm. The teacher gets a small cabin and is responsible for teaching the local children about French, math, the alphabet, and geography. She has to deal with the distrust of the adults, who follow dated rituals and knowledge. In this sense, the woman balances the lack of connection with the local population, the cold weather, and mysterious events happening as soon as she arrives.
In an economic approach to the film, almost the entire duration uses the small cabins, the snow, and the Alps in the background. It is a simplistic art direction rebuilding a 1800s French villa in the countryside. The whole ambiance of the unbearable cold that defies their survival there adds to the atmosphere of clashing cultures. Aimée represents the educated woman from a metropolis trying to educate and cultivate critical thought in those children. She confronts the locals and their ancient behaviors, such as not bathing the kids to create a crust and protect them from sicknesses. Also, the open windows in a funeral allow room for the dead soul to leave the body and ascend to the mountains. She is the antithesis of the old-fashioned culture. At the same time, her sophisticated beauty and intelligence seduce the young men, such as Enoch (Matthieu Lucci) and Pepin (Samuel Kircher). Her carnal involvement with them unfolds and unveils the retrograde thought of the community. As soon as people start to disappear, Aimée is the main suspect.
Hémon creates a witch-hunt-like drama in 1800s rural France, instead of a supernatural thriller regarding the suspicious disappearances. Therefore, she slowly develops the characters and their motivations to establish the power dynamics in that society. Aimée is the bad blood, someone trying to challenge their traditions and ordinary knowledge. Additionally, the children live with their grandparents because their mothers work as maids in castles and noble homes. Others have gone to Algeria and left their prole alone in the cold Alps. The directing takes time to expose each piece of the puzzle before flipping the conventions of its storytelling. Aimée is a nuanced character with a multitude of traits in her writing. She is intelligent, sensual, caring, and daring. Powered by an impressive performance by Galatea Bellugi, the character is never dull to the audience. Her charisma and nuances convince the viewer to understand her and dive into her motivations and desires.
Another crucial aspect of the ambience construction is the work by cinematographer Marine Atlan, which evokes one of her past works, Thunder (Foundre). Similarly, the Swiss film by Carmen Jaquier is set in the 19th Century and near the Alps. In both works, Atlan uses the texture of mountain rocks to create compositions in the framing, besides using the colors to expose feelings and the characters’ sexual impulses. There are plenty of open shots to represent the grandiosity of nature. In this sense, Atlan employs the contrast of the white in the snow and the lack of lightning for multiple reasons. It evokes a precarious structure of the village, which would depend on hunting and farming to survive. The camera work provides depth to the dangerous sense in that community. Her framing balances the shapes of bodies and objects and the thick snow around them. Hence, the last scene, before a twisty prologue, delivers a masterful framing by Atlan, who visually writes the contempt of the locals toward Aimée. It is a mesmerizing shot by the director and cinematographer.
Ultimately, L’engloutie (The Girl in the Snow) is a strong directing debut by Louise Hémon. She creates a muscular drama about an educated woman against an ancient village that despises the modernity she brings. Thus, she has a strondous performance in Galatea Bellugi, symbolizing a cultural clash between people and igniting a silent witch-hunt. It lacks a more profound development in the second act, where the ambiguity is not fully presented yet, and is not as fascinating as it ends up being. However, Hémon is talented enough to pull off a vibey, sexy, and ambient debut feature. The director reminds us of the ancient behaviour of fighting against progress, while this ideology is sadly coming back in recent years. The director solidifies herself as a name to observe in her upcoming efforts.
The Girl in the Snow (L’engloutie) recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about it at the Cannes site for the title.
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