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Rising to the sky

“She won’t notice, she just thinks about her own shitty life.”
- a comment on "La déesse des mouches à feu"

Catherine, called Cat, is sick of life with her parents. The fights - even on her birthday - a contest about her affection and the physical violence between them, day after day. At school she comes into contact with the drug mescaline, which allows her to escape her thoughts and problems. New friends, first love, acceptance and finally no more fights. For Cat, the mescaline scene seems to be a way out and she drifts into an addiction.

La déesse des mouches à feu is driven by two lines that leading Cat's life. On the one hand there's the time with her new friends - often high - expressed through visual and acoustic metaphors of freedom. Skating sounds becoming waves, the lights of the city turning into fireflies. Using slow-motion and great camera work, the audience experiences Cats' drug inebriation and her sense of freedom. On the other hand, Cat's family problems at home, which don't even getting better after the divorce of her parents. The audience realizes all Cat is doing is a silent yell for help to her parents. Of course they get to notice her child's addiction after a while, but they hardly realize her daughter's true intention and motives.

Director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette doesn't sugar-coat or play down anything in her film. We get to feel the physical violence, Cat's first sex and also the drug excesses and parties are shot in all their lengths. Sometimes loud and exhausting, particularly in the last third of the film I feel the length of 105 minutes. But this also creates a lot of authenticy and the great acting performance of the talents thoughts and inner feelings also reach the audience.

Especially well done is the music in the film, which takes us into the canadian teenager-life of the 90s. Between "Nirvana" and "Desireless" the lengths of the film are also underlined with a lot of atmosphere and it gives its expression.

"La déesse des mouches à feu" doesn't straighten out, is shocking and takes the audience into the teenagerhood of a girl who wants to resist her not quite bright future through rebellion. A very recommendable movie, which might require a differentiation from drug use and especially for a younger audience a preparation of the topic.

More screenings during the Berlinale:

Tuesday, 25.02. 1.30pm CinemaxX 3
Sunday, 01.03. 5pm CinemaxX 1

24.02.2020, Clara Bahrs

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