Movie Recommendation: Ava
Dir. Léa Mysius, 2017
I don't watch movies with the mindset of providing a critical review or seeking movies to write about. Rather these recommendation posts reflect moments I finished watching a movie and felt driven to tell the world about it!
I only recommend movies I loved watching and am eager for you to see.
Last year I missed out on a movie I wanted to see in theatres called The Five Devils, a “witchy” French film with some time-bending attributes that seemed right up my alley. I finally got around to watching it on Mubi, and I liked it — it’s gorgeous, the performances are amazing, and though I wouldn’t have called the movie “witchy” I do have a soft spot for time-travel narratives, which The Five Devils flirted with.
While on Mubi I noticed that Léa Mysius’ first feature Ava was about to leave, so I decided I might as well give it a watch before it disappeared — and that was the movie I ended up loving.
Ava is one of those movies that succeeds at telling a highly cerebral fable entirely through pure id. The eponymous main character is a 13-year-old girl who learns she’s about to lose her vision. Angry, scared, and at her wit’s end with her single mother and infant sister, she takes her summer vacation into her own hands, first by stealing a dog away from a homeless Romani teenager named Juan, and then running away with him.
Watching Ava reminded me a lot of watching Walkabout, the 1971 Nicolas Roeg flick. The whole story is dangerous: Ava is only 13, she commits crimes, she loses her virginity, she waves guns around and breaks things…. even Juan is as threatened by Eva as he is threatening to the adults who would be watching this movie. But the characters are sort of charmed with a protective layer of adolescent innocence and pure will to remake their own world. Both Ava and Walkabout are disturbing to adults while arguably being open and honest about childhood.
Much of this confrontation of sensibilities — adult concern for the dangers of the world against youthful drive and resilience — is handled spectacularly by Léa Mysius. I have no idea how much of the story is autobiographical — I know that it is set in the beachside town she lived in until the age of 13, and I think she chose the age of 13 for Ava instead of 15, 16, even 17, or whatever the age of consent is in France, because it’s about that time of life in that place.
However, it’s clearly all true. Not true as in these events actually happened, but true in the way fables and fairy tales are true. True in the sense of expressing a 13-year-old girl’s rage at the world and her sudden and rapid understanding of how easy the rules are to break. How thin the barriers of adult life are and how easily to break through them.
Mysius also has a gift for pulling outstanding performances from young people. Both Sally Dramé in The Five Devils and Noée Abita as Ava way out-performed their elders, though to be clear Abita was 18 when she portrayed this 13-year-old: probably Mysius had to have a performer that age because of the sexuality and nudity.
This was a great adventure story. Unfortunately, its license ended on Mubi and it is no longer available on any platform in the United States. When I used to work at Hastings during the height of the DVD craze, I could guarantee this movie would be available for interested folks. At worst it would be a special order. Right now to see this movie, people in the United States would have to order a Blu-Ray from Europe and play it on a regionless Blu-Ray player, or they have to pirate it.
I’ve chosen to write this recommendation anyway because good movies deserve recommending even if distribution sucks. Always remember the streaming services took away more choice than they gave. Mubi is a great place to see movies like Ava, but it and the Criterion Channel and all the curated prestige streaming sites together can never offer the depth and long-tail of the old days of DVDs.
In the meantime you can watch The Five Devils. Let’s hope Mysius’ star keeps ascending so her work can get wider release.
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