Summer ‘85/Été 85/Лето 85
“He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down-and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Recently I have watched a French film “Été 85” (2020).
First of all, I must say it’s not only about love of two boys. There’s so much more about it-the holiness, beaty, grief and impossibility to understand Love itself. It’s about people- someone who loves and someone who is loved. Someone who cannot be tied because it’s their nature but in the end still decides to change in the sake of Love.
While watching “Été 85” I noticed some interesting parallels with some other important films, that maybe didn’t change my life, but helped me understand it more.
So, the largest parallel in my opinion is with film of Luca Guadagnino “Call me by your name”. Actually, the fact of their similarity I tend to describe as “It’s always about north of Europe and Jewish boys”.
During the entire view I got a strong impression, that “Été 85” is an unfair version of “Call me by your name”. You can say that “Call me by your name” wasn’t fair too, but Luca Guadagnino (director) made the end fairer for Elio and Oliver, by making them different, by country, age (there it matters) and level of acceptance of their sexuality by people around them. Oliver wasn’t ready to stay forever with Elio even though he loved him the most. It couldn’t last longer than summer.
On the other hand, Alex and David (from “Été 85”) were similar in ways that Elio and Oliver weren’t. They lived in one city, had same French teacher, worked in the same place and the age gap between them wasn’t so big. It’s not circumstances that separated them, it was only about Alex and David.
On that point we reach the main reason I started to write this review- coordinating natures of David and Aslan from mentioned in epigraph book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. Both of them cannot be tied, it’s just simply who they are. Though, from now on we will be talking about their differences, because it’s the reason why “Été 85” ended the way it did.
David is very interesting person. He changes every time, like sea changes its flow. He is passionate about things that interest him, especially, people, speed and boats. But the thing is, that he made himself “wild”, apparently, in trying to cope with death of his father. He said it himself, he missed him. So, he made his mind and heart being unable to be attached and therefore hurt. And there came he, Alex. Poor boy, that broke all the system. At first, David was only slightly amorous of him, he remained wild. But in the end we discover that he died when went after Alex afterwards they had a fight, so in fact, David agreed to be tied, to be hurt because of Alex. The Lion was tamed, so system was broken, and as we all know, when something is broken it just doesn’t work.