LITTLE WAVES (MATURE)
An Evening of Discovery & Sexual Jealousy
Little Waves (Les Petites vagues) (2018) is a French-language Canadian short film. It stars Alexandra Sicard as Améile, a young girl watching her favorite cousin, Michael, connect with a new girl. Améile’s imagination takes off when she sees the two flirting. She imagines herself with Michael but is disappointed when she sees him and his girl having sex. Améile goes through a series of surreal, psychedelic events that culminate in a hallucinatory experience at the end of the film. This film is a mesmerizing visual display, with sophisticated coloring techniques and a comprehensive visual palette that keeps developing and sets the movie’s tone.
Ariane Louis-Seize, the director, is from Quebec and has produced a series of French foreign language films: Conne une comete (2020), Wild Skin (2016), and Bonne Nuit Sexy Deer (2014). Little Waves premiered at TIFF, the Berlinale, and 45 other international festivals. The production company is headed by Jeanne-Marie Poulain of Art et Essai–which is a thriving studio known for producing fiction and documentary. The captivating cinematography was done by Shawn Pavlin, who also worked on X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) as an assistant camera operator. A ton of experience and craftsmanship went into Little Waves, from its talented crew to its moving cinematography.
There is a somber tone to this film. Every shot is setting up a story or highlights emotions through color design and symbolism. Even the overwhelming presence of water is symbolic of the fluidity of Améile’s changes as she goes through life. In the first shot, we see a pool cut to a moving blanket, keeping up the image of mobility as people and relationships change and maintain a protean form that is not still-standing but dynamic. In an attempt to combat an ever-changing world, Améile’s imagination makes stories and creates images that try to bring her comfort or attack her psyche as a response to what’s going on around her. As such, Amélie finds solace in water as a suspension of the harsh reality that her cousin is seeing a girl who is not her. Is it that “Little Waves” carry her mind?
