"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
Edwige Feuillère Simone Simon Marie-Claire Olivia Yvonne de Bray Suzanne Dehelly Marina de Berg Lesly Meynard Rina Rhéty Tania Soucault Elly Claus Nadine Olivier Sophie Mallet Hélène Rémy Michèle Monty Ludmilla Hols Marcelle Arditi Martine Bridou Patricia Solair Lisette Lebon Jacqueline Siber Violette Verdy Suzy Dumas Catherine Alba Jocelyne Jany Eliane Salmon Evelyne Salmon Gabriel Sardet Paul Mesnier Gilles Ange Show All…
The Pit of Loneliness, Оливия, 奥莉维娅, 올리비아
Denmark
Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
UK
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival
France
Saint-Etienne LGBTI Film Festival
France
Paris Chéries Chéris Film Festival
Ukraine
Odesa International Film Festival
France
Portugal
France
Japan
USA
France
USA
UK
Germany
Poland
Denmark
France
Germany
Japan
Poland
Portugal
UK
USA
Ukraine
The film's English title, The Pit of Loneliness, describes this story perfectly. It's about two people who fall in love, but can never be together, and the loneliness that comes with that. I'm a firm believer that love is fluid--unpredictable. That we can't choose who we fall in love with, no matter the gender or age we desire in a partner.
I once was like Olivia. I fell in love with one of my teachers, like she falls in love with Mlle. Julie. It was scary, confusing and, well, lonely. I think this film captures that feeling of falling in love for the first time marvellously through the performance of Marie-Claire Olivia.
For the 1950s, I think this captures a…
every single character in this film is a lesbian and it is magical and camp and provocative
“let us savor the swift pleasures of our fairest days.”
elements that are normally so huge in cinema are made so small and delicate here, almost like secrets kept between the film and the viewer. there are murmured lines and furtive glances made between these characters that no filmic attention is brought to in the moment. yearning and suppression are given the same treatment as hunger and joy. the things women are typically allowed to feel and say are spoken in the same breath and with the same cadence as the things they aren’t; a loud and familiar whisper in the dark.
Thanks to Sakana1 whose review got me so intrigued I just had to watch this movie.
On the surface Olivia presents itself as getaway from everyday life, set in a beautiful boarding school in France that is house to free spirited girls, in which conventions do not exists, love knows no boundaries and laws, spirituality and morals are left behind, favoring the intellect and sentiments, a place where emotions grow and flourish, expanding without society's judgmental control, a place where the notions of femininity and womanhood are redefined, and the young girls are encouraged to embrace their sharp critical side instead of hiding it, all of this enhanced by the beautiful sets and costumes, the vibrant and living direction and…
The unnamed French finishing school at which Olivia takes place is a profoundly, intentionally insular world: everything any of the girls need is available to them there, from enlightenment to friendship; from loyalty to love. In this proudly gynocentric space, the women and girls are everything to one another, opening their hearts as a matter of course and constantly in physical contact, in a way that physically expresses their collective, deep connection.
Given the intensity of the ideas and emotions constantly swirling within that space, it's no surprise that sexual desire is present as well. And, in this film written and directed by a woman, based on a novel by a woman, that desire is presented as utterly normal. It's…
about a girl living through her first devastating teenage crush on a much older, very manipulative lesbian in a relationship with someone equally so.
/ an interesting historical companion piece to 1931's mädchen in uniform: one made in germany before ww2, one post-ww2 in france - both set in an all girls schools, a setting which completely omits male presence and offers a unique space to examine lesbian attraction, yet both with markedly different foci.
the following morning, olivia, clearly in love, throws open the curtains of her bedroom letting the sun flood in. she recounts in the book: “It was the term that begins in spring and ends in summer, and I felt indeed as if I were coming to life with the rest of the world”
A film brave enough to ask the question "what if Mädchen in Uniform was super fucked up?" and to know that the answer would be "it would rule"
The more I watch this, the more I love it. So beyond past, present, and future in analyzing the female psyche, in my opinion. I’m really thankful this movie was made. Every time I watched it in the theater, I felt like I was one of the girls at the school. The visuals and aesthetics are stunning.
