How much does our appreciation of a film depend on our knowledge of the film-maker? The question is difficult to avoid with this tale of a 16-year-old schoolgirl who develops a relationship with an older man. It was made by its star, Suzanne Lindon, who wrote it when she was 15 and directed it when she was 20. Lindon is also the daughter of French actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain, which some might perceive as a bit of a head start, but she certainly holds her own here.
Lindon plays “Suzanne”, a student from a loving, affluent Parisian family (in appearance she resembles a young Charlotte Gainsbourg). She doesn’t lack friends, but she is bored with her immature peer group. On her walk to school every day she starts to notice Raphaël (Arnaud Valois), a handsome, 35-year-old actor performing at the local theatre. He also seems bored. Suzanne becomes curious, and the two draw closer. As much as Suzanne is mature beyond her years, Raphael seems somewhat immature – even ordering the same sugary soft drink as her at cafes. Is it possible for these two to meet somewhere in the middle?
From the outside, their relationship skirts the boundaries between schoolgirl crush and sexual exploitation, but these complications are not really the story’s concern. Predominantly seen from Suzanne’s point of view, it is something more intimate, hesitant and innocent – and less cliched. For one thing, there is no overtly sexual dimension to their liaison. (As if to prove she knows the territory, Lindon includes a nod to Maurice Pialat’s 1983 movie A Nos Amours, which centred on a promiscuous 16-year-old, also named Suzanne.) Nor does the outside world particularly encroach.
Lindon lets her story unfold in simple, natural strokes, aside from a few key moments where the couple’s movements morph into coordinated, choreographed dance moves. Where some might praise an Eric Rohmer-style lightness of touch, others might see a certain slightness. And at barely 70 minutes, this is a fleeting affair in every sense. Perhaps that’s the point.
• Spring Blossom is released on 23 April on Curzon Home Cinema.
