Review of Le chignon d'Olga

This is a remarkably fresh, charming, and genuine work by a director, Jerome Bonnell, who was only 23 at the time. Whatever mastery of cinema craft he may have lacked then, he more than made up for in his ability to wring the most amazing performances from extremely young actors and actresses. The most staggeringly brilliant performance in the film is by Nathalie Boutefeu, as the character Alice. Boutefeu passes through a bewildering range of shifting emotions and moods with the scintillation of sunbeams on water. It is one of the most remarkable performances of someone of that age which I have ever seen. There seems to have been a deep resonance between her and the director to give her the confidence to expose herself so completely to the camera, holding back nothing. Not surprisingly, Bonnell has gone on to make two further films with her. Who wouldn't? Another amazing performance is that given by Florence Loiret as Emma, whose moods shift almost as violently, as she grieves for her deceased mother, wants to leave her father but cannot, almost has an affair with her lesbian friend but cannot, almost cries but laughs, almost laughs but cries, and so on. None of this is in the slightest bit contrived, because this is how people of that age mostly are, and who better to direct them in a film than someone of the same age who may even be that way himself, for all we know? All of the performances are excellent. One especially charming and delightful minor performance is that delivered by the little boy, Antoine Goldet. It is a pity he has not appeared in another film. He was inspired casting. This is a film which is languid and lingering, dwelling on the faces of the characters without concern for the need to rush off and look at another character. The emotional tangles and knots, the 'presence of the absence' of the dead mother which is palpable and felt at all times in her household, the quarreling and the disputes, the making-up, the alienation, and the coming-together, the love both spoken and unspoken, the heartbreak, all of these are magnificently conveyed in this artless and natural movie, which gives the impression of having been thrown over someone's shoulder like a girl's handbag, so effortless does it all seem. It's easy for some!