“I’ll always love you and never know why,” Camille (Lola Créton) earnestly, melancholically and dramatically tells Sullivan after eight years of separation at his own hand. After a year of being together starting from the time when Lola is fourteen (she’s fifteen at the beginning of the tale, which commences in February of 1999), nineteen-year-old Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) decides he needs to become “a real person” by challenging himself with “real” experiences. This, naturally, means an expedition to South America with two of his friends, compelling him all the more to drop out of school.
Camille, in contrast, is on the studious track, though not yet sure what she’ll do with her life considering, “Love is all I care about,” much to her mother’s eye-rolling annoyance. Despite their differences in character and ambition, the pull of their love–even in the face of frequent spats, often spurred by the disparity in how they express their emotions–is strong. Camille and Sullivan share that unshakeable connection of the coveted storybook phrase called “true love.” You know, of the Romeo and Juliet variety so highly sought after when you’re naïve enough to still believe in such things (ergo feel comfortable saying such pretty words as, “Camille, you know how tough it is to sleep without you, not to see you when I wake up? I can’t live without you”). And yet, Camille is that rare breed of girl whose passions cannot be quelled by the passage of time. If anything, in fact, they only deepen in Sullivan’s absence.
Though it is said that the first film of a director is generally the most autobiographical, Mia Hansen-Løve (a fitting last name for this film) waited for her third feature–somewhat misleadingly renamed in English to Goodbye First Love–to take the risk that comes with delving into the subject that affects most of us after it’s happened: first love. Admitting that Camille is the closest character to herself that she’s ever gotten, one has to wonder if Camille’s eventual second love is somewhat modeled after Hansen-Løve’s current husband, fellow director Olivier Assayas. Pursued by her architecture professor, Lorenz (Magne Håvard-Brekke), Camille begins to reawaken to the possibility of letting someone new into her heart, in addition to recognizing her own worth. For after being abandoned and essentially rejected by Sullivan after he stopped writing her letters at a certain point on his journey, Camille seemed to know only how to pine–going so far as a suicide attempt. “It’s time to turn the page now,” her father tells her in the aftermath. And yes, what else can you do when the one you love’s feelings (or lack thereof) have been made abundantly clear?
While Sullivan may love her to a certain degree, his overall selfishness and utter commitment to freedom as opposed to another only serves to further paint Camille as overly needy, looking for each of them to be “everything” to one another–a desire that Sullivan can’t stand behind, too content flitting about and exploring his other options beyond the restrictive confines of a relationship. The crux of this issue between them reaches a crescendo in Ardèche, where Camille’s family has a home for them to retreat to honor Sullivan’s sendoff and the impending ten-month separation. Given the opportunity to play out their domestic fantasies (or at least Camille’s), tensions mount as Sullivan is constantly accused of not really loving her. Camille’s insecurity, at times overblown, is not unwarranted. And yet, it’s almost as though the more theatrical she becomes, the more withdrawn Sullivan becomes in turn. As is the case with most emotionally stunted men. Who are unmoved by a girl’s archaic threats of being unable to live without the person she loves/promising to drown herself in the Seine in response to his callous action–which he merely deems as “living his life.” Not being too dependent.
At one point getting hyper-meta, Sullivan criticizes the film they’ve just seen for being “too French”–a.k.a. too drenched in what others would deem false intensity in l’amour. But the truth is, when love catches you for the first time, the reality is that the same fervor can never be recaptured in subsequent relationships. Maybe it has to do with the presumed youth (therefore a capacity to be ardent in a way that age detracts from) that comes with loving for the first time. Or maybe it’s that we can only give so much of ourselves to one person before it gets spent, with not quite as much left over to give to the next.
In spite of knowing this in her heart of hearts, Camille manages to move on as much as she can with the sensible choice that is Lorenz. Lorenz, who appreciates her natural gift for architecture stemming from her sentimental attachment to and understanding of place. Awareness of how a specific location can live within a person their entire lives for different reasons–especially those pertaining to love. Or love lost. This is why she creates a model for student housing with that same idyllic set up of Ardèche in mind. Constantly trying to re-create the last time she can remember feeling even half as intensely before la mort est venue.
The years continue to pass, as shown through various mediums (chalkboards, notepads, etc.–remember, it was before the internet dominated all means of communication, plus French people still vaguely believe that to handwrite things is always more romantic, which it is), and with them, some of Camille’s depression. But it lurks there, beneath the surface, triggerable at any moment should the wrong stimuli appear. Like the sight of Sullivan’s mother (Özay Fecht), riding the same bus. Instinctively, Camille writes down her number to give to Sullivan, who would not have bothered to attempt reaching out otherwise, clearly.
And as she falls down the seductive rabbit hole of drinking in the familiar pheromones that first awakened her sexuality in adolescence, she betrays a man who is actually stable, would never dream of breaking her heart as Sullivan did with such eventual ease. So it is no surprise that he slaps her with a missive to her childhood home, “Maybe when we’re older, we’ll be worthy of our love.” Thus, Camille must deal with the loss of Sullivan anew. Squirrelly and slippery Sullivan, so hesitant to be held onto by a woman that truly cares for him.
In the end, Camille is still literally chasing that last vestige of her premier amour in the Loire, as the all too lugubrious lyrics to “The Water” by Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling rue, “All that I have is a river/The river is always my home/Lord, take me away, for I just cannot stay/Or I’ll sink in my skin and my bones.” And so Camille sinks, deeper and deeper into that void of longing–the one that forever punctuates a certain unhealable wound of suffering over perpetually ruminating on the proverbial “one that got away” nature of all first love. The one that no other man can hold a candle to, even if said man is more worthwhile than a garden variety pussy boy. So yes, potential viewer beware, if you lack a similar sensitivity to Camille (as Sullivan mocks, “I see you still have the monopoly on sensitivity”), then don’t bother. You could never fathom a statement like, “I’ll always love you and never know why.”
