Montreal filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose delivers a remarkable feature debut with Bonjour Tristesse

In 1954, at just 18 years old, Françoise Sagan published her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse. Set in the South of France during the languid days of summer, the book explores the frivolous life of 17-year-old Cécile and her father Raymond. Aimless and effectively thoughtless, their shared perpetual adolescence is interrupted by the arrival of Raymond’s old friend, Anne. Serious, intelligent and hard-working, Anne’s presence in their lives exposes the limits of their existence. Rather than embrace change, however, Cécile plots to tear apart the new couple with disastrous consequences.

First adapted for the screen in 1958 by Otto Preminger, the story has long been a dark-edged antidote to the coming-of-age drama. Deceptively light in tone, the novel (and subsequent film, starring Jean Seberg and David Niven) exposed a poisonous strain of adolescence and the leisure class, with surprising precociousness. Diving into the sensuous pleasure of beauty, Bonjour Tristesse felt like a harbinger of post-WWII malaise: resistance to a changing world was a destructive force, antithetical to the values that western society apparently cherished. Rather than progressive or humanist, violence underlined the safety and peace portrayed by Cécile and Raymond’s easy life. 

In her feature debut, Montreal filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose sought to adapt the story for the contemporary era. Instead of books, Cécile (Lily McInerny) always has a phone in hand. It’s a small touch handled with remarkable grace. More than just a tool that drives the film’s vengeful second act, it becomes an extension of identity and an instrument for alienation. The tangled wires of headphones and chargers are a vibrant metaphor for an interior world pulled apart by guilt, irresponsibility and carelessness. The phone allows the interior knotty world of Cécile’s childishness, insecurity and moral uncertainty to be externalized. In stark contrast to the strong compositions that pay homage to classic Hollywood and French new wave filmmaker Éric Rohmer, the film finds a lightning rod of anxiety in technology.

Despite its languid and occasionally theatrical pacing and tone, Bonjour Tristesse feels modern. We don’t need to see Cécile livestreaming her existence to understand how her vapid world view has been shaped by the influence of technology. Though bright and engaged, she’s also been pacified; access to information and the world has only dulled her senses. People don’t have inner worlds and are easily toyed with. Rather than engender connectivity, she’s put at a distance. Then again, so is everyone else. The illusion of connectivity, a contemporary curse, causes nothing but strife. 

Bonjour Tristesse (which also stars Chloë Sevigny and Claes Bang) has remarkable attention to detail for a first feature. From the earliest shots of Cécile’s summer fling, lightly caressing her clavicle with a finger, to the perceptive use of colour as a means of not only suggesting mood but creating powerful blocking elements that connect or contrast characters within the frame, the movie has a strong visual identity. The film not only looks like summer, but feels like it, capturing the charged ennui of long hot days bleeding into each other as they quickly speed towards a return to normal life. 

This film is more than impressive. It suggests a strong eye for composition but also adaptation. While it loses some momentum as it goes, and is occasionally tripped up by the old-fashioned stiltedness of some dialogue, it’s a surprisingly sparkling film that suggests a great new cinematic talent. ■

Bonjour Tristesse is now playing in Montreal theatres.

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