Cold Water (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

From the director of the acclaimed Carlos and Irma Vep - as well as the underrated Demonlover and Boarding Gate.Set in 1972, the subtitled French film introduces us to the disenchanted teen protagonist Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) and his younger brother as they run around the house with their little radio, adjusting the antenna and trying to get the signal to pick up. When they finally find the perfect spot, Bryan Ferry’s deep, playfully seductive voice streams in: “Make me a deal and make it straight.” It’s a brief moment made to feel like a burst of utopia, as though nothing can be better than that signal picking up. Assayas wanted to mirror the difficulty, and the joy, of listening to music when he was growing up in the ’70s.Cold Water was birthed from a made-for-TV series, in which various European art-film auteurs including Chantal Akerman, Claire Denis, and André Téchiné paid homage to their teenage years. Assayas’ take on the concept premiered at Cannes in 1994 before airing on French TV, but after a limited run in France and Italy, Cold Water was shelved. According to Assayas, the sales company repping the film went bankrupt shortly after its completion, and by the time the masterpiece got back into the hands of a company that understood its magic, years later, the rights to the music—from high-profile artists like Janis Joplin, Nico, and Bob Dylan—had expired. That’s why Cold Water is only now getting a U.S. Bluray release 24 years later. This is, after all, the director who commissioned a Sonic Youth soundtrack (Demonlover), set a montage of international film icon Maggie Cheung running around in a leather catsuit to “Tunic (Song for Karen)” (Irma Vep), and carved out a concert sequence for Metric’s “Dead Disco” (Clean). Though his Cold Water song selections veer more towards boomer rock than the punk that would emerge later in the ’70s.From the bonus feature: Assayas thinks of the film as a “punk rock take” on the decade: “It kind of has an angle of violence, but the ’70s also had a creative, profound, spiritual dimension to it.”Cold Water, which Assayas also wrote, revolves around two teenage delinquent lovers, Gilles and Christine (Virginie Ledoyen, a familiar face in French film and one of the few professional actors on set), as they aimlessly drift through their adolescent years with uncaring parents, until they decide to run away together. It starts with a shoplifting scene, in which they steal Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Deep Purple records and get caught, leading Christine’s father to send her to a clinic. She’s an angsty teen rebel whose cries for help are dealt with via drugs and strict discipline.Gilles comes from a more stable family, who belong to a comfortable middle class, but when his father floats the idea of boarding school, he and his girlfriend turn to each other for escape. For the same crime, they’re punished differently because of their upbringings and societal statuses, but the film is also about the disconnect between parent and child, the latter belonging to France’s post-revolution generation. Assayas says the film is partially autobiographical, as he was 17 in 1972, shoplifted records, and had conversations with his father that mirrored those Gilles had with his.After the brief Roxy Music scene in the beginning, the movie remains music-less for a long time, as Gilles and Christine’s lives diverge into quiet family dramas. They reunite in the anticlimactic yet climactic party scene, a sort of nihilist utopia where kids dance and do drugs. This is when the film’s soundtrack becomes one hit after another. Janis Joplin’s cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” gets the party started as the camera pans across the room, at the characters gathered at this commune. It zeroes in on Christine, an outsider even among outsiders, eternally pouty with stringy hair. She takes a pair of scissors and chops away at her mane—a trademark signifier of drastic change in a woman’s life. The scissors are later used as a different kind of weapon, when she stabs a girl at the party after being told not to cut her hair. Christine will always look for an act of rebellion against authoritative voices in her life.After this violent (though not fatal) moment, the film reaches a new phase of freedom. While all of Christine’s friends think she should be sent back to the clinic, Gilles finds her at the party and hugs her in a silently understanding manner. After Donovan’s “Cosmic Wheels,” Alice Cooper’s all-too-appropriate “School’s Out” soundtracks images of teens packing pipes with weed, and while Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” briefly plays, smoky coughs fill in spaces where dialogue is spare. Later, teens slow-dance to Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche,” before the big dance scene around the bonfire set to CCR’s “Up Around the Bend.” Later we hear Uriah Heep’s “Easy Livin’” and Nico’s husky voice croon over “Janitor of Lunacy.” It’s a meticulously curated but not forced-feeling playlist, genuine and of its time.From the bonus feature: “It‘s a time capsule, but there’s something universal about the film because there’s this thing about the teenage years being both about the end of something and the beginning of something else,” Assayas says. “Something‘s dying, you‘re saying goodbye to your childhood, and you‘re becoming a young adult. So it‘s a moment of rupture. I think that‘s why when you tell stories about teenagers, there’s always something melancholic about it. Even though they have the energy and stamina of youth, there’s something important that they are leaving behind.”By the time the flame of the party dies down and the morning comes around, Gilles has lost his virginity to Christine. As the rebellious soundtrack of the night before fades away, the sobering words of Nico’s “Janitor of Lunacy” seem to endure: “Janitor of lunacy, identify my destiny.” Something has been left behind, but they’re faced with a liberated path forward, one that can only be sustained by the blind optimism of youth.Quotes from the director from interviews/commentary included on Criterion disc.

Virginie Ledoyen usually portrays a young, decisive and bold teen. Sometimes happy, more often uninhibited. I love her style and her acting talent. She does it so natural. In this movie, her character could not overcome her past of unstability. She tried to set herself free of that terrible past. The outcome is tragic. I give Virginie Ledoyen a 10 on her acting. I give the author who wrote the tragic story a 2.

great music