Locarno Film Festival 2022: Stella in Love (Concorso Internazionale) | Review
Sylvie Verheyde’s latest film, Stella in Love, explores the hardships of growing up and longing for love with a vibrant backdrop of 80s Paris.
Autobiographical films of director’s childhood have become a genre on its own from Francois Traffaut’s The 400 Blows to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. But to putting it in a film series, female filmmakers have done so more than males such as Marta Mezsaros’ Diary trilogy and Joanna Hogg’s 2-part Souvenir film series. Sylvie Verheyde has done something more ambitious with her latest film at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Stella in Love, 14 years after her autobiographical film, Stella (Venice Days, 2008). The film continues 6 years after the original focusing on the last year of lycée (high school) similarly portraying the first film’s story of her last year in primary school. Sylvie’s portrayal of her life during those years sparks an electricity and atmosphere of the early 80s from dance clubs, puffed-up hair styles, and chic retro clothing. Contrasting the 80s look, Stella is faced with similar disruptive problems from the first film, family trauma, outcasted, and her peculiar, introverted personality which causes the many difficulties during this coming-of-age period.
Stella’s final year in lycée is about to begin as the film opens with a sun kissed Italian summer fling as she rides in the back of a young Italian’s motorbike cruising to Italian pop songs. Many characters from the first film carry over, such as Gladys, the top student and Stella’s best friend, her mother who is played by now Marina Foïs and her still distant father played by Benjamin Biolay. School begins and Stella is quite the capricious woman. We are shoved right into Stella’s life and its happenings; unstable parental guidance, breezing terribly through school, and now the film’s central pivotal point of Stella’s growth, love.
Now to tell your personal life story through your film, it is hard to toe the thin line of overdramatization of situations and hyperbolic scenarios to enhance the story, but Sylvian brilliantly just shows her young self as it is. There is no plotline overdone for a manipulative effect nor extravagant set piece, but follows a straightforward account punctuated with Stella’s inner thoughts via narration. These narrations work brilliant here because Stella is in situations where she cannot mouth exactly how she feels. And especially with how a young woman’s transition to adulthood, it is a film device that fits perfectly for the subject matter.
When Stella and her friends receive tip that they could get into the hippest dance club, Bains Douches, they doll up, and fortunately for Stella, is accepted into the club due to her elusive attitude, while her friends have a not so high success rate. It is at this club where Stella meets André, the slick dancer and their relationship spark after a vibrant dance floor sequence. Another boy she comes to a liking to is a schoolmate who shows a liking towards her through relatable feelings and always trying to be there for her. These relationships along with her summer fling with the Italian are just some of the examples that lead to Stella’s understanding of intimate love. She longs for these because nothing else in her life is working out.
It is interesting to see Sylvie continue her life story through the Stella films from a personal lens. During the film, Stella mentions she wants to study dance at university, but her mother mentions that she needs to work and make money. Her working-class background, is what makes the relationship between her mother and Stella quite special. They’re both trying to figure out how to navigate life on their own terms. It is stories like these that are unique on its own and relatable at the same time and a series I hope Sylvie continues to explore. While Stella in Love‘s title suggests Stella seeks love through a male partner, it’s the unique kind of love she finds within friendship, companionship, and family.
