Summer of 85 (Ozon, 2020)
Over the past ten years, François Ozon has directed an impressive array of entertaining and provocative films. His films have become appointment viewing for me, and By the Grace of God was my favorite film of 2019. Yet I struggle to articulate what defines an Ozon film. Grace is a hundred and forty-minute lament for the victims of clergy sexual abuse. Summer of 85 is a bittersweet ninety minutes, with the soundtrack and color palette of an 80s teen romance. In the House and Young & Beautiful might be said to be about precocious teens who manipulate adults, whereas Summer of 85 and By the Grace of God highlight the fragility and innocence of youth.
Summer of 85 is based on the young adult novel Dance on My Grave by Aidan Chambers. The novel was about a British teenager, but the film moves the action to France. But perhaps more important than the geographical setting is the temporal one. The novel was published in 1982, meaning the events depicted were meant to be contemporary. Ozon correctly intuits that the gay themes of the story are rooted in the early 80s–pre-AIDs and pre-exposure of the aforementioned clergy sex abuse scandals.
Consequently, the love story between Alexis and David has a frankness that seems a little out of place in the mid-80s, but that might be attributed to cultural differences between France and the United Kingdom (or America). I considered whether some of this might be intentional, a stylized idealism that softens negative scenes and appears to lean into genre (in this case teen romance) conventions. Another factor contributing to Ozon’s chameleon-like quality is that he works with a variety of cinematographers. The crisp, black and white photography of Frantz, the dim, low-key shadows of By the Grace of God, and the breezy colors of Summer of 85 each have there own emotional weight and contribute to very different looking narratives.
Perhaps the thing I liked most about Summer of 85 was something that I mentioned in my review of the the Hollywood film, Love, Simon (it too based on a young-adult book). It is a film about gay characters that is remarkably accessible to straight audiences because it emphasizes the similarities of emotional responses in teens. First loves are so bittersweet not because they are heterosexual or homosexual but because they are new to the person experiencing them. The sense of loss or betrayal, the anxiety, the inflated promises, the mixture of adult feelings and childish understanding of them, are all part of the teenaged years, regardless of one’s sexual orientation.
The second half of the film borders on soap-opera, but that too is forgivable given that its main characters are young enough and inexperienced enough that the gradations between melodrama and tragedy are less familiar. Young people can be told constantly that they aren’t really in love, that they don’t know what love is, and that they are mistaking what they are feeling for something deeper and more significant. Where the teen romance and gay romance intersect here is in the way the lover(s) is/are treated. When we make assumptions that another’s feelings aren’t real (or are real but not as important as our own) we justify all natures of cruelty.
Despite a slew of painful events in its plot, Summer of 85 is not an emotionally devastating movie. There is some sweet mixed with the bitter, because the main character is true to his own promises and faithful to love as he understands it and feels it. Once you have made peace with who you are, it is much easier to come to terms with the life events that helped you evolve into that person.
Summer of 85 will open in Los Angeles and New York on June 18, 2021, followed by limited theatrical engagements in key markets.
