The discovery of love and the first adolescent emotions can take a funny turn when a mystery comes to complicate them even more. This is what Bastien, 14, will discover, on vacation with his parents and their friends in the magnificent region of the Laurentians, in northwestern Quebec. Their wooden house is isolated between a beautiful and vast lake and forests. Shortly after their arrival, Bastien meets Chloé, who is three years older than him. Singular, both reserved and not very shy, she catches the eye of the teenager, but she will do nothing to rush their game of seduction. Above all, she will talk to Bastien about the presence of a “ghost” by the lake, which will have the effect of disturbing the boy unexpectedly, this potential “specter” coming to interfere in his dreams, and between him and his sweetheart…
Freely adapted from a comic strip by Bastien Vivès, “Falcon Lake”, the first feature film by Charlotte Le Bon, ex-model and Canal + weather forecaster, now an actress and director, impresses with her atmosphere and her mastery. Starting from a romance worthy of the best American “teen movies”, she makes it drift – without ever letting go of this aspect – towards the genre film, the tragic, even the fantastic with this ghost story. And thus manages to install a unique atmosphere, between lightness, suffocation and mystery, all in a setting that lends itself perfectly to it, this isolated lake, strange but also magnificent and bucolic, conducive to adolescent bluettes.
Amazing young heroes
The director has a lot to do with the success of her film through her formal choices: a 4/3 format and 16 mm film with its pretty grain which magnifies the images, and a way of gently flirting with a genre dear to David Lynch. , whom she admires, without ever pressing anything or forcing the dose, while remaining focused on the budding romantic and carnal relationship that she distills with sensitivity and modesty. Charlotte Le Bon also seems to have a gift for casting. She reveals on the screen two formidable beginner actors, the French Joseph Engel and the Quebecer Sara Montpetit, he remarkable as an introverted kid, she staggering as a very deep young woman under her crazy looks.
All achieve the great originality of this romance in a very particular style but which can touch all audiences, and which is a hit at festivals: selected in May at Cannes at the Directors’ Fortnight, it then received the Ornano-Valenti Prize (which rewards a first work) at the Deauville American Film Festival, and the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film a few days ago.
« Falcon Lake », French romantic thriller by Charlotte Le Bon, with Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri… 1h40.