I finally rewatched Bonnell's feature debut _Le Chignon d'Olga_ that
once impressed me so much. It is a sprawling coming-of-age story.
It is summer time in a French small town, but instead of vacationing,
Julien (Hubert Benhamdine), his sister Emma (Florence Loiret Caille),
and his father are still coping with the recent loss of his mother.
The sensitive Julien has experienced a loss of faith, throws out
the letter inviting him to a prestigious piano competition, and
secretly pines for an older woman (unnamed in the film, but obviously
the titular Olga) who works in a bookstore. He buys books of
poetry to impress her but shyly hides his infatuation from his
best friend Alice (Nathalie Boutefeu), who used to baby-sit him.
There are clearly autobiographical elements in the story; I can
imagine Bonnell having only older woman-friends too when he grew
up. Alice is a radiant aspiring dancer who has self-esteem issues.
She has no qualms about confiding in Julien intimate details of
her love affairs, or about crawling into his bed, platonically,
when predictably mistreated by her boyfriend. Their relationship,
and Julien's obsession about an older woman, reminds me of Neil
Jordan's brilliant summer-in-seaside town feature _The Miracle_.

But the film is a not narcissistic walk memory lane. His father, a
writer of children's story, also seems on the verge of giving up
art as well as fidelity to his late wife, much to the chagrin of
Emma. She works in a toy story, hopes to escape to Paris some
day, but worries about her father, and is processing/fending off
advances by the glamorous Marion (Clotilde Hesme); making sense
of her life, just like everyone else. She also babysits a young
son of family friends who is addicted to Charlie Chaplin. By
intimating an all-pervading connectedness and recurrance of motifs,
desires, societal roles, and the maturation of adolescents, Jerome
has created a incredibly warm and generous ensemble piece. It
gently evokes Renoir, Rohmer, and the entire French humanistic
tradition. Julien predictably has his heart broken but the
resolution of his complex relationship with Alice redeems both;
it may also be Bonnell's benediction upon all mankind.

The use of Schubert's impromptu in the soundtrack keeps the
mood light in what could have been a dark tale, and the sumptious
natural lighting further enhances that ambience. Bonnell would
learn to do compositions and blocking better in later films,
but _Olga_ is perhaps more ambitious and intricate than the
cleanly mounted stories of his to follow.

Bonnell was the same age as many of the young actors in _Olga_,
many of whom went on to significant careers. Benhamdine starred
in _I Slept Under the Water_ and directed a few shorts. Boutefeu
has had a long career in television. Clotilde Hesme probably
became the most famous, and won a Cesar in 2012, but I suspect
cineastes will remember Florence Loiret Caille most fondly (she
is splendid in _The Queen of Clubs_, a reunion with director
Bonnell). Dephine Rollin, however, never appeared in another
film.

I rewatched _Chignon_ in the week that Arnaud Desplechin's
_Ismael's Ghosts_ shows up where I live. The sypnosis of
that film is so self-indulgent, solipsistic, I can't imagine
myself watching it, although Amalric and Gainsbourg are in
the cast. I did watch Desplechin's _My Golden Days_, and that
mid-career work does not stack up well with Bonnell's debut
in terms of sensibility or story-telling. Yet it is Desplechin
who has been anointed "cinematic master." That tells us
how much trouble art house cinema is in.

(for A.)

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