_First Love_ (_Erste Liebe_) (1970) is based on a Turgeyev novella.
The director is Maximilian Schell, supposedly the most famous German actor of his generation in Hollywood. The cinematography is by Sven Nykvist. Apart from Schell playing the naive Russian boy Alexander's father, the most famous name in the cast has to be Dominique Sanda, who plays the young aristocrat Zinaida, the object of Alexander's first crush. She is his neighbor during his summer family vacation. Her presence entrances not just father and son but
an entire entourage of artists, lawyers, doctors and sundry hangers-on both wealthy and broke. The coming-of-age story unfolds against the backdrop of peasant unrest (although not yet the Revolution; Turgeyev died in 1863). Zinaida flirts everyone, and has affairs with some, including the father.
In the film's epilogue, which skips forward a few years, she dies of
childbirth at the film's end before the protagonist gets to see her again.

The soundtrack vocals and Nykvist's cinematography evoke the opium haze
of _Elvira Magidan_, although the frequent use of sudden, telescoping close-ups is more of a 1970 arthouse trademark. But _First Love_ really belongs to Sanda,
who has seldom been more magnetic and lively. I tried to look up reviews from that era. Roger Ebert panned the film for its ending without mentioning any actor, while Molly Haskell claims that Bresson has used up all of Sanda's liveliness in _A Gentle Woman_. A slander!

Why is it that Dominique Sanda, winner of a Cannes best actress award and collaborator of Bresson, Bertolucci, De Sica, Deville, Demy, and Nicole
Garcia, so lightly regarded? (Jim Stoller, who once frequented these parts, used to scoff at mentions of her name -- wish he is here so I can ask him.) Admittedly she usually plays ice princesses and does not have a huge range,
but neither does Monica Vitti and Charlotte Rampling, who are not as subtle
or nuanced, or have such acrobatic eyes. Sanda's customary aristocratic bearing makes the rare, almost vulgar displays of emotion (like at the end of _The Conformist_) all the more sensational. The cracks in her armor are
finer and less revealing in _First Love_. But Turgeyev may as well have written the role for her. In her long career, only her work in Deville's _Voyage en Douce_ rivals that in this film.

_First Love_ motivated me to rewatch Nicole Garcia's _Going Away_, where Sanda plays the matriarch. The 2013 film marks the first time Sanda has graced the screen after a break of 12 years. She is suitably imperious but manages to express such subtle regrets about her neglected son Baptiste (Pierre Rochefort),
whom she and her upper class, extremely wealthy family sort of abandon to an asylum, and then to the streets. Sanda is beautifully complemented by
a blonde Deborah Francois, who has graduated from her ingenue roles to that
of a young heiress with reserve and hauteur to rival Sanda's. The prodigal
son returns home, with down-on-her-luck waitress (a riveting Louise Bourgoin) and her own oft-abandoned son in tow. Baptiste now works as a substitute teacher who wanders South of France, and strikes up an immediate emotion bond with Bourgoin's sad-sack son. He reluctantly goes home to raise 50,000
euros to save Bourgoin from her debt collector. The humanistic story beautifully sets up parallels and contrasts among the parents and sons separated by vast class differences. It may well be the best Techine film
not made by Techine, but that description would be doing a disservice to Nicole Garcia, who is among the first rank of cinematic auteurs in her own right.
Both Garcia and Techine loves shooting in the South of France. _Going Away_
is shot on the beaches outside Montpellier and in the Pyrenees. The beach front cinematography -- the golden light and autumn shadows -- is absolutely heart stopping. Pierre Milon is the unheralded director of photography, but his work in _Going Away_ easily surpasses that of Nykvist's in _First Love_.

(for A.)

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It just struck me that _Going Away_ makes a fascinating comparison
with _Summer Hours_, Olivier Assayas' film about family inheritance,
class difference, prodigal son, and summer in France. _Summer Hours_
has Juliette Binoche and a stellar cast, is highly acclaimed, and
got the Criterion royal treatment as does too many of Assayas' films.
But the characters live in a snippy intelligentsia bubble; they are
consummate insiders who know the prices of every 3rd and 4th rate
art object and game the system to enrich themselves. When
Jeremie Renner's character talks about his factories in the far East,
he may as well be reciting a 3rd hand report. _Going Away_, in
contrast, has its heart in the right place. It is a million times
better. Thanks for the Cohen film group for distributing the DVD -- they
put Criterion to shame for their sheer good taste.

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