Product Details

• Actors: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachre, Adele Haenel, Warren Jacquin, Christel Baras
• Directors: Cline Sciamma
• Writers: Cline Sciamma
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Koch Lorber Films
• DVD Release Date: September 2, 2008
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001AZ5IV0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,164 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Water Lilies" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Director Céline Sciamma’s feature debut, Water Lilies, recalls the intimacy of teenage friendship as it tells the story of three girls grappling with their newly formed sexual identities in suburban Paris. Opening with scenes of the local high school’s synchronized swimming team, Water Lilies stars Marie (Pauline Acquart), coveting a spot on the sophisticated female sports team. Her best friend, Anne (Louise Blachère), is non-athletic and grows increasingly disturbed as Marie courts swim team captain, sexy Floriane (Adele Haenel), to secure a place in the popular group. However, as Marie and Floriane grow closer, Marie learns hard lessons about loyalty and bonds girls develop at this crucial life stage. Water Lilies is stylishly filmed, with slow, rolling scenes reminiscent of Sofia Coppola’s film, The Virgin Suicides. A charming shot of Marie, for example, kicking her legs up in the bath as her pet turtle swims around her exemplifies the cute, acutely personal tone this film cultivates. All three girls, but especially Floriane, exude hipster appeal that is greatly enhanced by a subtle lesbian subtext that underlies their love triangle conflict. As borders between friendship and attraction melt away, Water Lilies becomes testament to the unique intimacy that females can achieve. Unlike Sofia Coppola’s films, which tend to gloss over character depth in favor of pinpointing fashionable aspects of melancholy, this film’s narrative unfolds craftily, through quiet dialogue between the girls that show how deeply each cares for the other. Scenes in locker rooms and swimming pools alone, as the "synchro" girls travel for competitions, get costumed, and practice their routines, make Water Lilies enjoyable. Even more rewarding, however, is Sciamma’s ability to turn teenage identity crisis into something humorous, while still conveying its severity and high-stakes outcomes. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

WATER LILIES - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Depths for the deep, December 30, 2008

By 

Ehkzu (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water Lilies (DVD)

A film review should help you decide whether or not to see the film. It shouldn't be some reviewer's soapbox. Rather, it's like a matchmaking service, looking not for the reviewer's ideal spouse, but the one for you.

That's what I'll try to do here.

First some filters: this is an organically-paced film in French, with subtitles, shot on a low budget. So if you demand that everything you see look like a glossy Hollywood spectacular, skip "Water Lilies." Even the landscapes aren't gorgeous. This is the Paris of sprawling anonymous suburbs. I'm not sure the characters have even seen the Eiffel Tower... except on TV.

And skip it if you're looking for French porn shot from a middle-aged male point of view (Louis Malle comes to mind). There's nudity here but it's painful, not titillating. There's powerful romantic passion but not the kind of elaborately choreographed love scenes that pass for "sexy" in Hollywood.

Also skip it if you're looking for a lesbian film. It's not about the lesbian community. It's not about a teen discovering she's lesbian and dealing with family and friends who are horrified, yada yada. None of that. There is at least one lesbian in the film, but that doesn't make it a lesbian film, any more than the presence of a black guy in a leading role in "The Matrix" made it a "black film." Lesbianism isn't the subject of "Wild Lilies."

Moreover, skip it if you don't want to see how three fifteen-year old girls see the world. This is what led to one singularly dense reviewer calling this a man-hating film. Well, duh. Imagine what boys are like from a fifteen year old girl's perspective. Girls mature emotionally before boys do, by and large. Boys don't catch up until they're in their 20s (if ever, some might add). The boys' preoccupation with getting laid, coupled with their emotional tone-deafness, makes them seem just like they're presented in this movie. If you're a man reading this, think back. You were like that then, weren't you? Be honest. Aren't you embarrassed by how you behaved during your first years of dating? I know I am.

Lastly, skip it if you want to cling to the belief that teenagers live strictly within the boundaries of a Disney teen comedy like, say, "Freaky Friday." I don't want to give away the plot, so I won't get into specifics like some other reviewers do, but some of the stuff these teens do will make you sit back and go "Whoa..."

But in retrospect it all makes sense--especially since these three teens are all outsiders: the girl boys lust after but who girls hate/despise; the overweight girl desperate for love; and the central figure, a skinny girl (think Scarlett Johansson without the curves) with the passionate depth of Juliet without any of Juliet's Shakespearian articulacy--and whose Romeo is ambivalent about her.

Hollywood screenwriters love the sound of their own words (with some exceptions, like Clint Eastwood), and their screen teens jabber incessantly, usually with the language and obsessions of a middle-aged male screenwriter ("Dawson's Creek"). But "Water Lilies"' teens talk in monosyllables, like many teens do.

And Hollywood teen actors grin and grimace and in general emote the paint off the walls. "Wild Lilies"'s teens look at the world through hooded eyes, with guarded expressions, never revealing more of what's going on inside than they have to.

This looks like non-acting to those accustomed to seeing people sawing the air with their hands and chewing the scenery. To watch this movie you have to recalibrate your head so you can watch people acting like people really act.

Do that, though, and you'll be rewarded richly. Pauline Acquart, who plays the movie's central figure Marie, is in nearly every scene; the movie rests on her narrow shoulders. As I said, she gives away nothing she doesn't have to. Yet hers is one of the most compelling portrayals I've seen of love so powerful it's nearly self-annihilating. But even then she never blurts out one of those totally phony self-revealing-speeches Hollywood uses to explain a character's motivations.

You have to watch Acquart as closely as she watches everyone around her to pry loose her secrets. And even though her love is probably hopeless, and even though it consumes her, she maintains an admirable, stoic dignity. Her courage is equally formidable. She's not one of those outgoing characters who naturally dominates a room. Nor is she a stalker, because stalkers believe their stalkee feels the same way about them and act accordingly. Marie has no such illusions.

Yet even though she has neither charisma, connections, nor the pseudo-courage of a nutcase, nor great beauty, she builds a connection with the one she wants, sometimes cautiously, sometimes boldly, as the occasion demands. She's an audacious general commanding a ragtag force in a war for someone's heart, and it's both fascinating and touching to watch her campaign evolve.

There's a scene in "Jerry Maguire" in which Renee Zelwegger's character dumps Tom Cruise's character, even though she loves him completely, because she can tell he doesn't love her as intensely as she loves him. Acquart's character, albeit less articulately, shows she's capable of the same kind of decision--even though she also shows that she will do almost anything for her Romeo (who's a female, as it happens, but this Romeo being female is absolutely not the point).

One other thing: this film shows us a few weeks in the lives of these three fifteen year olds. When the film ends, we don't know what "happens" later. That is, nothing is wrapped up with a ribbon tied around it. Nor should you expect the film to do so. These are 15 year olds, for heaven's sake.

Some Greek poet said "Call no man happy until his life is over." Likewise with these girls.

That said, I hope the director makes a sequel, with these same three actors. They've earned it. And they've earned your viewership--if you're worthy of this film.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Take a gentle swim among the water lilies, August 12, 2009

By 

Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Water Lilies (DVD)

Marie (Pauline Acquart) is petite, girlish, and shy, but likely on the verge of being a great beauty; her friend Anne (Louise Blachere) is awkward and somewhat overweight, and dealing with the pain those attributes engender from her peers; and Floriane (Adele Haenel) is already a great beauty, but doesn't know how to deal with all the attention she gets from the boys. "Water Lilies" is the story of their interactions, their experiences, and their growth (both emotionally and physically) during a school year in France.

The movie is understated, poetic, and sensual, though it would be a mistake to call it an erotic film. Rather it includes occasional erotic moments (discreetly filmed for the most part) in a story that's mostly about teenage angst. I also wouldn't characterize the movie as a "lesbian film", despite the same-sex crushes on display, especially among Marie and Floriane. The few romantic/sensual scenes between the girls were, to me, simply examples of the kind of deep affection and strong feelings that aren't uncommon among young teen girls. I could definitely see all of these girls, despite the intensity of their feelings for each other, eventually moving onto boyfriends when they're a little older, once their jumbled, still new, puberty-fueled emotions calm a bit. I'm not hostile to an interpretation of the film that says it's primarily about lesbian love and/or lesbian self-discovery, but I didn't see it that way.

"Water Lilies" is a shade under 90 minutes, looks and sounds great on DVD, and has easy-to-read subtitles that can be turned on and off. Extras are limited to the film's trailer, five minutes of deleted scenes, and four minutes of screen tests.

If you enjoy understated, character-based films that don't hit you over the head with big moments, you'll likely enjoy "Water Lilies" well enough. You'll even get a little erotic content. However, if erotic content is the main reason you're interested in this movie (for intellectual, prurient, or whatever reason), you'll likely be a little disappointed.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Strange but great!, May 20, 2010

By 

D. Sorel "book lovah" (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Water Lilies (DVD)

I have always enjoyed foreign films because they often broach topics that American movies do not dare touch! It is for this reason that I chose the French film Water Lilies which is about the sexual awakening of three adolescent girls. The main character, Marie, is a young girl filled with sexual angst who knows that there is something different about her but is not ready to discover that aspect of herself. Marie's best friend, Anne, is going through her own anxiety when she falls for a popular boy that she believes she will never be able to be with because she is not accepted by the popular crowd. Anne's frustrations are only exacerbated when she discovers that Marie has worked her way into the popular crowd by befriending the captain of the girls' swim team, Floraine. However, Marie soon realizes that she wants more than just friendship from Floraine.

There is a lot of ground covered in this movie that doesn't even run a full hour and a half. While each girl views her sexuality differently, each is in conflict with herself. Though none of the characters are likable, the viewer can still relate to those anxious years on the brink of one's sexual awakening. In addition, each girl embodies a different stereotype that we have of adolescent girls experimenting with their sexuality. There is the gay girl who has yet to come out to herself, the nerdy girl who yearns for the jock, and the popular girl who wants more than the one night stands that she has grown accustomed to. Though the film reinforces these stereotypes, it does not come off as cliched or jaded. Overall, it was exactly what I wanted from a foreign film: insight and interesting issues that America believes are too controversial for their silver screen.