There are times when I long for a great new film from France. Gone it seems are the days of Goretta, Chabrol, Truffaut, Malle and Bresson. Sometimes Techine rises to it, but only just. I was reminded a few days ago of what we are missing when I caught up with Mia Hansen-Love's "Goodbye First Love", a film that conveys the ecstasy and pangs of adolescent passion with a delicacy that the French so often manage to achieve with such effortless ease. In short, this could not have come from any other country. I watched the first third which follows the intense relationship of eighteen year old Sullivan and the younger Camille with something of the excitement of rediscovery. Hansen-Love's direction has a fluency and pace that perfectly match the breakneck quality of an affair teetering on the edge of uncertain fulfilment. When Sullivan departs with his mates on a South American backpacking trip Camille is distraught. Her slow recovery and recognition of a different type of love in her relationship with her mature architecture teacher, Lorenz, form the central part of the film. Unfortunately with the absence of a frenetic passion something of the vitality of the first third is lessened and the film becomes an altogether more mundane affair that even Sullivan's return several months later cannot quite rescue from the occasional yawn. What I imagined from the beginning might prove to be a re-run into "La Dentelliere" country ends up as something far less substantial in quality. Today's French cinema, although often still quite distinctive in style, sadly lacks a director of the calibre of those men from the past.

Most of us at one time or another have experienced the sacramental beauty of loving another being. Love, however, defies analysis and often does not fit our pictures. From an outsider's point of view, there are more unlikely couples than likely ones, but those who are not in the lover's shoes may be unable to fully understand their feelings. Camille (Lola Créton), in Mia Hansen-Love's third feature Goodbye First Love, is repeatedly told by parents and friends to forget the young man who claims to love her for eternity, but then leaves abruptly on a trip to "discover himself." That she is unable to let go is not a sign of immaturity or madness, but only of the depth of her love and the betrayal she feels.The 17-year-old Créton (Something in the Air) is stunning both in her appearance and her ability as an actress. There is never a moment when it feels that she is just playing a role rather than being herself. Hansen-Love, herself only thirty one, paints a striking picture of the impact of first love. When Camille meets and falls for the bland 19-year-old Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) at the age of fifteen, her first involvement is both joyous and heartbreaking. To Camille, Sullivan is her world and she is obsessed with him. Overly dramatic, she threatens that if he leaves her, she will "jump into Seine." He responds by saying that "If you cut your hair, I'll kill you," presumably sparing her the trouble of jumping into the Seine. Sullivan's relationship with Camille, though tender, lacks commitment.For him, it feels as if love is a good idea but not something he feels in his bones and the chemistry between the two is missing in subtlety and depth. On vacation in the idyllic Ardèche region of Southern France, Sullivan dumps on her, relating his plans to drop out of school and backpack through South America for ten months with friends. Obviously, the "friends" part of it does not include Camille. When he is on his trip, she follows his journey via his letters and pushes pins into a map to mark his whereabouts. Though he promises to begin again where they left off, he soon writes to her that he wants to be free. Camille takes it hard, very hard and as time melts away, she is no closer to acceptance than the day she received the news.Hansen-Love does not give us much information as to the passage of time, but we know that years have passed during which Camille has gone to school to study architecture and has begun to build a new life with Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), a considerably older professor of Architecture. Growing in maturity, she has become a young professional, having apparently moved on from Sullivan, that is, until he comes back into her life, seemingly unchanged both physically and emotionally. Goodbye First Love can be meandering without much happening in the way of narrative and the jumpiness of the editing can be frustrating.Hansen-Love rarely stays with one scene (especially the love-making scenes) long enough for us to feel any deepening involvement, yet the film succeeds in capturing the extreme mood swings of adolescence with sensitivity and we can relate to the emotional pain a breakup can cause when people's feelings are treated in a cavalier fashion. What also works is the eclectic soundtrack that features Patrick Street, Violeta Parra, Matt McGinn, Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling, music that adds another dimension to the film. While it is not a "message film," what comes through for me in Goodbye First Love is the Buddhist idea that the origin of suffering is attachment to things that are impermanent such as desire and passion. Nirvana, however, is not always comprehensible for those who are fifteen years old.

Louis Garrel recently made his first feature film as director, Le Petit Tailleur, in an interview afterwards he admitted that his film was of a Paris that did not exist anymore, where the young went to the theatre to see Kleist. His film, as this one, contains a nostalgia for the New Wave. This is tacitly admitted in Goodbye First Love when Sullivan mentions that he went to a party in the suburbs where kids went to have sex and take drugs, a piece of shrapnel that doesn't fit in the jigsaw of this movie. The young of the developed world live with their eyes burnt out.Goodbye First Love tells the story of Camille, in love with Sullivan, and how she copes with losing that love and moving on with her life. There's something pristine about the way that young animals love and lust together, narcotic and somewhat illusory, but on the threshold of paradise; and actually the most astonishing part of the film practically occurs in an Eden. One its successes is the casting of two actors who have an obvious sexual compatibility, which lends credibility to the treatment.Mature love comes, but lies in the cradle of shared creativity and mutual respect, which should represent a superannuation of first love; but flesh is not just. For Camille, riding on the pannier rack of Sullivan's bicycle and grasping his body will always be the seed of her crystal.Goodbye First Love, by the way, is an incredible aesthetic treat (my favourite part may well have been when the two rake over the ashes of their love, lying together likes ravens in a shattered tower, all a creation of capturing colour carefully). I felt privileged to have watched it, to have been let inside what's a meagerly-camouflaged auto-biography from Mia Hansen-Løve. I may well love and be loved back one day, but it won't be the Hamelin song that Mia has let me see, and I'm grateful to her for this facsimile.

Because it makes no grand gestures, "Goodbye First Love" is a deceptively simple movie. Essentially, it tells the story of a young woman torn between two men, both of whom she loves deeply but in completely different ways. Its simplicity is cleverly masked by a rather unconventional style, which is about as far removed from a Hollywood romance as it can be. The film flows rather organically, with most of the traditional cinematic enhancements stripped away. It's less about plot and drama and more about character. It may not be immediately apparent, but we are witnessing a person on the road towards maturity. This isn't to suggest she began at innocence, nor that she will end up understanding everything; all we know is that she's in the process of becoming.Her name is Camille (Lola Créton). When we first meet her, it's 1999, and she's a fifteen-year-old living with her parents in Paris. She's having an intensely physical affair with a teenage boy named Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who has given up on school. Despite their repeated assertions that they each are the love of their lives, they argue very easily. This is easy to explain: They're both still young and naïve, and they don't yet know what they want out of life. Sullivan yearns to experience the world and plans a trip to South America with a friend of his. Camille is threatened by his wanderlust and continuously threatens to harm herself. If he leaves, he may forget about her entirely and meet another girl. She claims that she's not looking for anything more than him.Sullivan assures her that he will only be gone for ten months and that he'll keep in touch. And so, off he goes. Camille copes as best she can as it transitions into 2000, receiving the occasional letter from Sullivan. In all his letters, he continues his practice of boldly asserting his love for her. They are, in fact, so bold that they come within an inch of being cruel and emotionally manipulative. In one letter, he tells with, rather poetically, that his love for her is holding him back. If he wasn't so in love with her, if she didn't plague his thoughts on a daily basis, he might actually enjoy his travels. Quite suddenly, the letters stop coming. A devastated Camille soon ends up in a depression clinic, at which point her father (Serge Renko) tells her that it's finally time to take the next step.Never once do follow Sullivan, whose stay in South America lasts much longer than ten months. We do, however, follow Camille over the next seven years. During this time, she finishes high school, attends a design college, studies architecture, and lands a job at a company run by a Norwegian architect named Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), who's separated from his wife in Berlin and seemingly estranged from his son. We see their relationship develop from employer and employee to casual acquaintances to emotional confidants to lovers. He may not express his love for Camille quite as vocally as Sullivan would have, but it's obvious that he cares for her deeply. She too cares about him. It isn't the same as it was with Sullivan, though. There's more than just physical affection; there's a clear understanding of who they are.It isn't until 2007 that Camille and Sullivan finally reunite. An exact date is not given, but it seems he had returned from South America quite a while ago. He now gets by as a photographer in Marseille, which he likes much better than Paris. Initially, it seems like their relationship has cooled and that they will continue merely as friends. But after a while, it's obvious that the old feelings have resurfaced. I expected this from Camille, but I have to admit, I didn't expect it from Sullivan. Memories of her continue to haunt him, and at one point, he tearfully wishes that they were back together. When Lorenz is called away on business, Camille and Sullivan regularly convene and make love, all the while sensing that what they're experiencing isn't likely to last.Having gone this far in my review, I fear that I've made this movie sound like a sentimental tearjerker. It's almost impossible to conceive of given the subject matter, but "Goodbye First Love" is about as devoid of sentiment as it could possibly be. Rather than indulge in fairytale contrivances, love and relationships are examined in terms of very plausible, very concrete physical and emotional needs. All leads to an indirect and rather languid ending, which is actually treated less like an ending and more like just another scene. As realistic as this may be, my innate American sensibilities had me longing for something a little more distinct. I'm not saying everything had to be wrapped up in neat little package, although some sense of closure would have been nice.-- Chris Pandolfi (www.atatheaternearyou.net)