The filmmakers of the French New Wave loved to voyeuristically follow chatty folks walking and talking their way around a city. The titular chanteuse of Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, or Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg pursued by the law in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, spring to mind.
Watch the Fwends trailer.
American Richard Linklater embraced the idea with his Vienna-set love letter, Before Sunrise, and has just unveiled his ode to the making of Breathless, Nouvelle Vague – so-named after the French cinematic movement – at Cannes.
We can add Sophie Somerville’s dreamy, DIY debut feature, Fwends, to this esteemed bunch. Taking place over the course of a couple of days footloose and fancy-free in Melbourne, we meet Fitzroy local Jessie (newcomer Melissa Gan) and Sydneysider Em (Mustangs FC star Emmanuelle Mattana) in the hubbub of Spencer Street’s Southern Cross Station.
Only it takes them a little while to actually meet, thanks to that modern malaise of not setting a specific location, instead describing too vague touchstones within sight of one but not the other as they try to realign via mobile phone.
Once they do synch up, there’s a slight awkwardness to their reunion that suggests friends who haven’t seen one another in quite some time, a first impression borne out in later conversation. This discombobulated air appears to cloud Jessie’s senses, as she proves a somewhat hapless guide to the city.
Cinematographer Carter Looker, rejoining Somerville after her previous shorts Peeps and Linda 4 Eva, captures Em and Jessie’s stop-start rambling in wide shots that often dwarf them in the teeming streets.
Their largely improvised banter – Mattana and Gan are credited as co-writers – is painted onto Somerville’s canvas, allowing for amusing mise en scène as they meander through Melbourne’s CBD in search of a specific coffee shop that never materialises.
No matter, the city’s full of them. There’s a marvellous energy as they make their way past a tram stop harangued by cricket-playing ‘men being obnoxious in public space,’ a possibly portentous dead mouse and throwing shapes in a loading bay’s convex mirror, all set to Mike Tilbrook’s tinkling jazz piano score. ‘It’s about the journey on the way to the coffee,’ Jessie insists.
Fwends: finding one another
Flitting between 20-something daftness and lilting ennui, the film follows the rhythms of Em and Jessie, both cast adrift.
The former’s a lawyer with no hope of saving for a deposit in the NSW capital, much to Jessie’s surprise. She’s also struggling to carve space in a leery workplace where even her mentor, an older woman, suggests she simply toughen up to beat the gross men at their game. ‘I feel like it always hits different when it comes from another woman,’ Jessie sympathetically laments.
Jessie’s stuck in a liminal space, with her self-proclaimed ‘soulless grey box’ of an apartment, to which they 96 tram it north after a stint in the Royal Botanic Gardens marred by Melbourne’s infamously all-seasons, having been largely emptied by an unseen ex-boyfriend who hasn’t quite moved out yet. He’s left her with only one fork, also relegating Em to the sofa with nary but sheer, simmering fabric for cover.
Once ensconced under this presumably destined for a fairy’s tutu material, projected starlight dancing across their faces, they embark on a D and M that quickly takes a turn, communicated via a silly voice-modulating microphone.
The sticking point: science versus feels, with Jessie a little exasperating, but Em way too high up there on her horse. It’s an all-too-believable snap, betraying the distance that’s grown between them while simultaneously capturing a closeness, however dormant, that leaps to sibling-style fury.
Fwends: who are we?
Gan and Mattana, with a hint of mumblecore hero Greta Gerwig’s early days before becoming a billion-dollar filmmaker, are grand company. From unexpected reunions with a clown through accidental lockouts and scoring first-time highs on a playground climbing frame, we gladly follow the highs and lows of Jessie and Em’s reunion as they try to figure out who they are to themselves as much as one another.
Through Fwends ups and downs, Somerville demonstrates an assured handle on these proto-people tentatively abandoning their larval state and emerging into fully fledged adulthood, come what may.
There’s even a fun nod to the Nouvelle Vague, with an extended, humorous homage in black and white and French language that wears those influences on the film’s sleeve.
Edited by Sommerville herself, Fwends packs plenty of heart into this weekend away. Debuting at Berlinale before swinging over to the Sydney Film Festival and on to MIFF, it’s a deceptively simple tribute to friendship, fall-outs and the thoroughfares of Melbourne that will thoroughly win you over before Em and Jessie rewind their way to Spencer Street.
