☛ Cette critique est aussi disponible en français [➦].

Translated by Gabrielle Baillargeon-Michaud. 

Following its world premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival in 2022, That Kind of Summer (original title: Un été comme ça) has now graced the big screens of our theaters. This new feature film, with a runtime exceeding two hours and fifteen minutes, is directed by Denis Côté. He is celebrated for his 2019 film Répertoire des villes disparues and his pivotal contribution to a movement known as the Renouveau du cinéma québécois (revival of Quebec cinema). This movement emerged in the early 2000s and includes prominent filmmakers like Xavier Dolan and Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette.

The film presents a straightforward, almost minimalist narrative: Léonie (Larissa Corriveau), Geisha (Aude Mathieu), and Mathilde (Marie-Claude Guérin) grapple with sexual disorders and hypersexualization. They retreat to a rural house, joined by two facilitators, Octavia (Anne Ratte-Polle), a researcher and therapist, and Sami (Samir Guesmi), a social worker. This environment allows the trio to experiment with a new lifestyle for 26 days, explore their traumas, and forge new relationships. The deliberate slow pacing of the film cultivates a contemplative viewing experience, complemented by sparse dialogue.

Questions arise about how a white, cisgender, heterosexual male can authentically represent women's sexuality in cinema. Denis Côté addresses this directly: "I am fully aware that I am a 48-year-old white man with heterosexual privilege," he told journalists. "That's why I surrounded myself with the perspectives of women throughout the writing and production process¹." His team included women and non-binary individuals such as editor Dounia Sichov, playwright and script advisor Rachel Graton, and sexologist Estelle Cazelais, who supported the actresses.

Additional contributions came from collaborators like rigger William Desjardins², who appears briefly but significantly in a shibari scene (a BDSM practice involving rope tying) at Tension, Montreal's only venue dedicated to this practice. Desjardins championed the inclusion of an aftercare scene following the shibari act to challenge the perception of bondage as objectifying³. While it may appear that the director has safeguarded his approach, the film still presents a more ambiguous and less radical take on sexuality than one might anticipate.

The film touches on the clichéd portrayal of female nudity in art and cinema history, as seen in an early scene at the retreat house where Geisha is semi-nude on a bed with a shell-shaped headboard, reminiscent of 15th-century Italian depictions of Venus, the goddess of love. Yet, Denis Côté opts not for a mythologized view of women's bodies but for a closer look at their intimate moments: scenes of them masturbating, including the facilitator Octavia, and a detailed shot of a woman meticulously grooming her pubic hair. The film's aesthetic—its measured pace, sparing use of music, and focus on mental health and introspection—removes any erotic undertone and largely avoids the male gaze, the conventional heterosexual and objectifying way to film women. However, there can be no discussion of representation without confronting the film's lack of diversity: while it features women of different ages, they are all white, cisgender, and thin. That Kind of Summer would have benefited from more diverse representation.

Some aspects of the film remain ambiguous or potentially disappointing: the portrayal of masculinity in an otherwise female-dominated setting, the lack of a clear stance on sex work, and the dynamics between the facilitators and the participants. For a film aspiring to redefine Quebec cinema in terms of women's sexuality, avoiding ambiguity and embracing a definitively radical stance would have been preferable.

¹ As quoted in this article by Marc-André Lussier in La Presse, February 15, 2022, online.
² A rigger is a person who applies bondage, usually ropes.
³ As quoted in this article by Diane Lestage in Maze, July 27, 2022, online.

Reference :

Director/creator: Denis Côté
Title : That Kind of Summer
Release Date: 2022

This movie is available on Apple TV.