Bande de filles (2014)

Top comments

1. 

   snowman181

   Underrated. Didn't like it that much at first but it stayed with me somehow... 8 years 11 months ago
2. 

   Lefty_Starks

   Great coming of age tale. 9 years 2 months ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   Boyhood came out in 2014, so I guess that's why they chose to call "Bande de filles" (Girl Gang) "Girlhood" in English... Anyway, I thought the opening sequence was brilliant. Girls playing American football (they do that in France?!) and loudly leaving the stadium, and suddenly becoming quiet as soon as a boy is glimpsed on the steps leading to a housing estate. It makes a strong statement. Even these tough, assertive young women have limited options in the so-called real world. Among them is Marième (the very engaging Karidja Touré), a teenage girl who isn't doing well in school and though I dearly love her relationship with her younger sisters, her family life is hardly any better thanks to a gangbanging older brother. She falls in with the wrong crowd, safety and strength in numbers, cannot imagine any other option, and so it goes. Except, I don't think director Céline Sciamma judges Marième and her new friends that way. People aren't just one thing, and the movie respects that. Its psychology, like its plotting and dialog, is naturalistic and invites gray zones. It's quite a nice portrait (or several, as we follow Marième further) of young womanhood in a world of little means. And whatever choices she makes, I think we can respect them. Bonus points for one of the great musical sequences in all of filmhood. 2 years 7 months ago

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