Film Review: ‘My Summer with Irène’ dir. Carlo Sironi
Rating: ★★★★★
“My Summer with Irène” (Quell’estate con Irène), a film directed by Carlo Sironi, world-premiered in the Generation 14plus competition section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on February 18. The performances of the two main actresses of the film, Noée Abita (as Irène) and Maria Camilla Brandenburg (as Clara) enchant the audience like a magician, and the screenplay by Carlo Sironi and Silvana Tamma, together with Gergely Pohárnok’s cinematography and the enchanting music by Lionel Boutang present a stunning work to the audience.
Set in Italy in 1997, Irène and Clara, both 17, wounded from past traumas, meet at a summer camp organized by the hospital where they were treated. Like two opposite poles of a magnet, they are attracted to each other and decide to run away to an island in Sicily and experience the side of life that they had never experienced before. They want to escape not only from themselves, but also from the harsh reality attached to them.
“My Summer with Irène” has strong elements from the cinema of the great Italian director, Michelangelo Antonioni, and as the film progresses, we are reminded more and more of Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece, L’Avventura (“The Adventure”). Maybe for three reasons. One of the bold components of Carlo Sironi’s film is architecture and anatomy, and the symbols that these two carry with them, and the second, most of the film takes place on an isolated island and pleasure is part of the journey of two young girls to the island. And third, isolation and loneliness of these two characters, searching for meaning and an existential approach can also be found in Carlo Sironi’s film.
One of the strong aspects of the film is the development of the characters. Irène has a bold, fearless and adventurous personality; This is evident in her eyes and face, and even her penetrating voice. Clara, on the other hand, has a very cautious personality, sad eyes, and a lot of internal insecurity. These two characters, like two halves of one existence, two halves of an apple, meet each other in the film and complete each other, in a way that the absence of one leaves the other disturbed, or perhaps incomplete.
“My Summer with Irène” has an existential approach, and the characters are searching for meaning. Irène and Clara run away from a harsh reality in their lives to an isolated island, which in my opinion is like a Treasure Island, except that they don’t know that they went there in search of treasure. The treasure is actually a metaphor for life and meaning in life. Both of them feel like “Alice in Wonderland” on this journey together, and Wonderland can be considered as life. Somewhere in the film, Irène says to Clara: “Do you think about all the things you haven’t done yet?”, Maybe her line can be interpreted as asking if you have thought about living and enjoying life!
In the film, it seems that the characters are caught in a catch-22 situation. The places we see on the island give us a sense of a catch-22, and for the characters, these places are unfamiliar and sometimes can give them a sense of anxiety. In most scenes in the film, obstacles such as being in front of the camera hinder the characters, and sometimes we feel that the characters are trapped between these obstacles, which are large rocks within the heart of the mountain or cave, and they have become imprisoned. These obstacles can be interpreted as barriers to communication, and boldly, the main motif and theme of the film is communication.
The director has intelligently chosen the name of the film, ‘My Summer with Irène’. In the film, it may seem that the film is about Irène, but my perspective is that the film is about Clara. This film is about Clara’s most important summer, a summer that drastically changes her life; and her use of a VHS camera, with Clara and Irène capturing the surroundings and even themselves on film, is somewhat like keeping a diary. It is Clara who revisits her memories in 1997 on an island in Sicily.
One of the quotes that came to mind after watching the film is a quote from Sören Kierkegaard, Danish theologian and philosopher, who said: “Life must be understood backwards; but…it must be lived forwards.”
“My Summer with Irène” (Quell’estate con Irène) premiered in the Generation 14plus competition section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale 2024) on February 18.
