By Gabby Foor
There’s a certain feeling you get when you’re caught in a memory, a haziness and nostalgia captured in sense and imagery that’s indescribable. Falcon Lake, in its very first moment, seizes this elusive feeling and continues with an emotional, lingering story that reminds us why writers and directors so often return to coming of age stories for their chills. Inspired by Bastien Vivès’ graphic novel Une soeur, the tale of a young boy with delicate sensibilities, a first love, and a first haunting, make for a memorable debut for Le Bon. With themes and tropes that lands it somewhere on the spectrum between Let the Right One In and Ginger Snaps, Falcon Lake is a romantic, coming of age film that is firmly rooted in sentimental cinematography, raw performances, and human connections from talented young actors. Gorgeous visuals that can send you back to the perils of adolescence bring Le Bon’s debut to life as tenderness and a bit of ghostly lore blend for an intoxicating youthful tale, told through a dark but beautiful lens.
This tonal mixing of love and tensions begins from the very first scene where a girl, first unknown to be dead or alive, floats prone in a lake bathed in golden light. Le Bon is tricky with these shots of the unknown (a suddenly screaming woman in the lake later turns out to be screams of joy) mixed into a stylish landscape of characters. We cut away from the girl to timid 13-year old Bastien (Jospeh Engel) and his French family, arriving at your typical cabin in the woods-setup ripe for a haunting in the Canadian countryside. Even his mother, Violette (Monia Chokri), remarks on the creep factor of the location as they find the power isn’t working on their arrival, as he and his brother Titi (Thomas Laperrière) rush to find bedrooms alongside their old friend Louise (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and her daughter Chloe (Sara Montpetit), with whom they are staying, and with whom the boys will share a room. After a dip in the lake, it’s off to bed in the midst of a storm. Excellent sound design gives strength to pounding rain but softness to a gentle snore or desk fan, giving life to an otherwise lifeless room, a remarkable technique that follows throughout the film accompanied by a moody score especially noticeable in the dark. This first storm gives us our first fright, as a girl, tattered, filthy, face unseen is suddenly in the room with Bastien and Titi, and crawls under the sheets a few feet away.
Morning comes, quickly restoring vivid colors, and Louise inquires if Chloe woke them last night. Chloe appears, and dismisses her mother as it’s the boys’ fault for being in her room. As the mothers muse age differences, she quickly removes herself from Bastien’s bashful gaze – but is soon brought back. Speaking from experience, the canyon between 13 and 16 is a wide one to jump for a teenage girl, probably why we keep getting the “almost 14” take on Bastien’s age. Forced to take them to the pier by her mother, Chloe is somewhere between curious and judgmental as Bastien is trapped between the polite and dutiful big brother he’s always played and the more daring adult he wants to be (with an obviously blooming crush.) After goading him into the lake, Chloe asks Bastien if he’s aware of the ghost there, that a child’s body part was found in the wilds of the lake. His fears are rooted in more real experiences, like almost drowning when he was young, which fascinates Chloe, who describes it with euphoria (she likes to re-enact death scenes).
As the adults bore, Bastien indulges in childish pleasures, earning an invitation away from the younger group and a little scorn from Chloe. Sharing a drink and cigarettes leads to more of Chloe’s love of the macabre, as she demonstrates a “weird” trick that feels like you’re touching a corpse; she also asks Bastien for more weird knowledge, for which he provides a strange survival fact, right before the pair are found by Chloe’s friends and the moment is ruined. The group goes into the woods and Chloe is found in the presence of some older foreign boys; Bastien is pushed into the background, and he eventually departs after some tasteless jokes. Surprisingly followed by Chloe, with wine in hand, the two head back, drinking until Bastien’s drank himself sick.
As the two develop into friends, shared living and showering spaces makes it difficult for Bastien’s developing feelings towards Chloe, and the scariest thing in this movie besides the jumpers Le Bon ties in, is the reminder of puberty – reminiscing on it is uncomfortable. That night, fetching water in the kitchen, we see a figure move past Bastien in the window after he wakes up to see no sign of Chloe. Curious at the movement, or perhaps the sound, he goes to another darkened window to peer out. We see a figure moving through the trees, then Chloe, floating, mumbling, in the pitch-black water.
Le Bon develops explores character and develops emotion masterfully throughout the film, and the young leads pull off strong material with ease. Feelings of shame and isolation emphasized by gruff soundtracks and polarizing camerawork reminds you of every moment you felt left out growing up. Fears rooted in reality (some TMI work from Bastien about his greatest fears really lets you know you’re amongst teenagers) bring relatability to a story that might have otherwise focused on more supernatural frights, and Chloe’s greatest distress is the teenaged fear to top them all. The themes of trying to break past limits of self-harm and the obsession with mortality lends this love story to being morbid, and most love stories end up becoming ghost stories, as we all know. While this tale may be devoid of a certain presence we expect with ghost stories, the anxieties that remain in this realm, along with its urban legends, are enough fuel to the fire to keep tensions rising and interests piqued, as we try and laze through summer days fraught with teenage trouble.
Falcon Lake is at its core an adolescent love story, but it’s a meaty piece of film exploring the pleasures and fears we start to take on at an early age. This is no doubt a strong start for Le Bon moving forward, and I hope as she continues in the genre she may grow bolder with her delivery of chills alongside the poignance. This movie was paced like an easy summer day, layered with top performances, metaphors for days and a sunny lead-up to what you can only assume will end with the worst. The ghosts of our childhood and teenaged years undoubtedly haunt us all, and however we cope, whether that’s a fascination with death or our own introversion, we will inevitably come to realize how we faced fear. Falcon Lake is a beautiful, touching look at growing up, culture shock, coping mechanisms, rebellion and sexuality. If you’re looking to follow your heart instead of your adrenaline, slow down and take a beat with a serene chiller that gently embraces a memorable romance.
Falcon Lake (2022) is available digitally from June 13th 2023.