{"id":39881,"date":"2017-11-20T14:03:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T22:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=39881"},"modified":"2017-11-20T15:16:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T23:16:19","slug":"milla-vaerie-massadian-2017-franceportugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=39881","title":{"rendered":"Milla (Va\u00e9rie Massadian, 2017): France\/Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Markus Linecker. Viewed at the AFI Filmfest 2017.<\/p>\n

Milla, a 17-year-old teenager, lives with her rather insecure boyfriend Leo in a vacant house. Even though they are homeless, Milla has a very positive outlook toward the future. She is in love with Leo, who only reciprocates partially. Rather, he focuses on his stacks of books, seemingly trying to create normalcy in his surroundings, and working odd jobs like going out on fishing boats.\u00a0 When Milla becomes pregnant, life become very different. Though not a documentary, this actor actually was a pregnant, homeless teen, bringing home the poignancy of the situation.<\/p>\n

Through all of this, director Val\u00e9rie Massadian has created a character study of the growing problem of teenage homelessness and pregnancy.\u00a0 As the director\u2019s sophomore feature, the film seems presented in three parts: love, real life, and hope. Love is shown in the relationship of Milla and Leo. Real life is when they deal with the aspects of separation, change and becoming an adult. In the final, hopeful part, Milla\u2019s child is born, and it shows the love between mother and son.\u00a0 Milla is played by 17-year-old Severine Jonckeere who is not an actress but an actual teenage mother.\u00a0 It also helps that her real life child is her son in the film, which makes her performance so natural and realistic. Leo is played by Massadian\u2019s son Luc Chessel, known for films like Low Life<\/i> and Fort Buchanan<\/i>. The character Leo is very much self-focused without any ideas about his future. He somehow accepts Milla\u2019s love for him but also feels at a distance from her.<\/p>\n

The film is beautifully shot with long takes and not a lot of camera movements. In addition there are never more than two individuals present on-screen, so the audience really can enjoy and study the characters\u2019 dialectical interactions. \u00a0 Massadian\u2019s portrait of different emotive stages of happiness, grief, and hope in\u00a0 beautiful imagery reflects each of these emotions. It creates the feeling of total surrender to life, which becomes liberating and paints a narrative in which the audience appreciate all aspects of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Markus Linecker. Viewed at the AFI Filmfest 2017. Milla, a 17-year-old teenager, lives with her rather insecure boyfriend Leo in a vacant house. Even though they are homeless, Milla has a very positive outlook toward the future. She is in love with Leo, who only reciprocates partially. Rather, he focuses on his stacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2017","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}