Céline Roustan
Amélie just got back from New Zealand and to celebrate her return, she decides to take her close friends Maude and Pascale to her cabin. What sounds like the perfect escape for three young women with alcohol, weed and punk-rock music, quickly gets derailed by unspoken desires, jealousy and power plays. In her directorial debut Marie Davignon’s Amies (Girlfriends) explores the hopes and desires of these three friends, as the complex dynamics of their relationships leads to a captivating tension, elevated by the stellar performances of its cast.
Inspired by a nostalgia for both her adolescence and the early 2000s, Davignon explained, as we discuss the aims of her film, the she wanted to make a film that would “not only echo my memories as a teenager, but also show some inner changes that we experience at this stage of life”. Adding that she was keen to depict the “thin line between love and friendship that can be experienced at this age of sexual discoveries” in her film.
Davignon has mainly worked as a cinematographer, but pushed by the desire to express herself freely and explore what she could do as director, she took the leap and wrote Amies. Eager to create an unconventional portrait of women, not falling into the stereotypes of teenage girls in most coming of age stories, the three characters in her film are strong, independent and listen to punk rock, yet those are facets of their personalities not their main trait. Davignon’s screenplay digs deep and reveals the dynamic of their relationship layer after layer, unveiling a more psychological aspect to it all.
Amélie, Pascale and Maude have a complicated relationship that is convoluted in many ways, with blurry lines between friendship and sexual desire. Davignon has complete control over the pressure she adds to her set up, making the tension mount at a captivating pace and ultimately explode, in an unexpected way. The first layer is exposed in the opening scene, and when it comes to friendships, three can quickly become a crowd when jealousy is at play.
Both Amélie and Pascale are vying for Maude’s attention with the weapons they have available. Amélie has control of the location of their getaway, her cabin, her turf, while Pascale uses her much more bold, fierce, manipulative personality. Pascale identifies Amélie’s weaknesses and pushes her buttons attempting to unravel her relationship with Maude. As everything Amélie had planned gets derailed by Pascale, the tension rises and Pascale might be seen as the villain, up until Amélie gets in the game and the power struggle between them shows its true colors.
The film relies heavily on the performances of Rose-Marie Perreault (Amélie), Marine Johnson (Pascale) and Sabrina Bégin-Tegeda (Maude), but the three performers bring the extremely complicated relationship of their characters to the screen with a remarkable authenticity. Davignon knew how important their chemistry would be and used a lot of improvisation during rehearsals, encouraging them to take their liberties with the material while shooting to make it sound even more natural. As the story unfolds, each time either Amélie or Pascale wins a round the dynamic changes, but those performances never drop and remain compelling up until the last scene when Perreault impressively delivers every aspect of the complexity of the moment.
A fascinating tale of love, friendship and unspoken desires, Amies had its world premiere at TIFF and then went on to have a successful festival run with notable stops at SIFF and Regard, ahead of its online release as a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere. Davignon’s work as a cinematographer has already been featured on our website with Black Friday and she is now currently attached as a DP to some features, while looking to carry on her work as a director by working on a webseries and looking to develop her first feature.