Marseilles, between water and stone. Two friends, Lise and Lola, are as close as can be at the age of 18, during the summer of graduation and possibilities, between childhood and adulthood. They feel immortal, invincible, and eternal. But at the end of one day on the beach, Lola goes for a swim and doesn’t return. Lise must now live with her absence.
With her first feature film, L'Eté l'éternité, Emilie Aussel continues to explore this important age within a group and in individual relationships, as she already did in her amazing short films Petite Blonde and Do You Believe in Rapture? (both 2013).
She describes with great accuracy, tenderness, and maturity the ideals of these characters who wish to suspend the perfect moment in time and keep it intact. Perfection appears to be in the instant, and that allows for eternity to happen.
By intercutting choreographed scenes of life that show multiple individual energies in the same frame with poignant straight-to-camera testimonies aimed at those absent, the young director invites us in via her magnificent actors, brimming with sincerity and naturalness, to reach a certain wisdom through one of the characters: “Everyone leaves in this world, only the walls remain.”
Mathilde Henrot
