Agathe Riedinger’s Competition title shows us the contradictions and pressures of being a modern woman. And the resulting film is a work of the seventh art not to be missed.
Liane (the magnificent Malou Khebizi) is just your regular, up to date 19-year old girl. She applies make up with the precision and heavy handedness of a Kabuki dancer, she spends her days on social media, either watching videos of other young women who are enhancing their appearance with all kinds of procedures or making provocative videos of herself in various stages of undress, and she dreams of participating in a reality show to escape her gloomy existence.
Liane lives with her little sister and their single mother (Andréa Bescond) — whom she refers to as a “shadow, a puff of wind” and whose weakness when it comes to men, in her daughter’s eyes, makes her contemptible — in the South of France, in a small, dusty town called Fréjus. Take away some of the glitz and glamour of the Croisette during festival time, the fashion brands that dot its sidewalks and Fréjus is very much like Cannes. Till one day, Liane’s dream seems to be within reach, when the producers of Miracle Island, a reality show shot in Miami, Florida, spot her video on social media and call her in for an audition. Little Alicia, her sister, already looks up to Liane and paints her eyebrows in the same manner, while wearing fake eyelashes, at age 12.
Now, you will have to pardon my reference here, but I’ve just finished watching Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and the Warner Bros. title is coloring my thoughts. Once Miracle Island calls, with the prospect of taking Liane on for a couple of months of shooting and, in the process, turning her into a reality star, the young, at times alienated girl takes on a sort of armor of invincibility and becomes a super heroine for the modern times. Substitute thickly painted eyebrows for the dark fumé grey blue brow that Furiosa sports in the second half of the epic saga, and Liane is just as fierce, fueled by anger and a need for attention, as well as the power that brings, so deep that she can taste it. And we, the audience, can too.
Riedinger is a brilliant filmmaker, giving such freedom to her actors that allows them to explode in front of our eyes, in a deliciously shot film which helps explains so much of what is right — and wrong! — with the world. Wild Diamond is her first feature, the story drawn from Riedinger's 2017 short film J'attends Jupiter. It’s masterful and that’s why it’s in the main Competition at this year’s Festival de Cannes.
About the ambivalence women today feel with their own beauty — asking themselves if they should be unique or adjust and enhance to conform — Riedinger said this brilliantly in her press kit interview: “Liane goes to any lengths to look beautiful. She doesn’t realize that she is hurting herself. She transcends herself. She is in control, all-powerful. She is a magician who transforms things, from a pair of shoes to her own body. Her beauty channels a life drive to become someone. From the very beginning of the film, even at the age of 19, we can tell that she has already had some work done. She submits to the old-age refrain that a woman must suffer to be beautiful and be beautiful to be worth anything. Of course, women’s voices are heard more clearly today, of course their position, their work, their integrity are more respected now, but the social schema still holds that a woman is only really a woman if she is physically attractive.” The French filmmaker also goes on to explain our need to be beautiful, as that seems to be the only leverage for a woman, along with youth.
“These days, we keep being told that beauty and self-esteem go hand in hand. Magazines, advertising, television, social media, fashion – there is a whole climate that feeds the demand for the sexual enhancement of the being. Social networks are flooded with ads for plastic surgery clinics offering discounts with promotional codes, as if they were selling mere creams.” She continues “Videos of ever younger women filming themselves on operating tables, covered in bandages and high on painkillers, are liked, commented on, and shared. Not to mention the pumps, suction cups, tighteners, retractors, and refiners –- all of them pink, of course –- that are touted by celebrities, bought by teenagers and fantasized about by little girls. Now anyone can become an icon. So now more than ever, women are reduced to having to be beautiful. And to show it.”
Of course, it is not a new concept, that beauty is very important for women. To succeed in life and work, being beautiful has always been a must, an all-important asset to be used as leverage both with men and other women. Yet what is new, and what Wild Diamond so perfectly defines, is the addition of a non-erotic sexiness that young women are bringing to the game. Their bodies are built for sex, in every possible way from fake boobs to butt implants, and they move like strippers, while dressing like amazons. And yet this is the least sensual generation for our gender that has ever existed. The more “civilized” and technology aided we become, the least willing and able to find a mate we become. And is that what will bring the end of the world about, after all is said and done? Simply our inability to talk to each other without a phone as a conductor, and our unwillingness to touch, without getting something in return.
While men seems to require more and more sexual stimuli — plastic women are just around the corner and women of my generation have become downright invisible — women are reclaiming their power by putting on a permanent armor of silicone and fillers, along with some serious war paint and a uniform which makes Wonder Woman look like a novice nun. Is this their salvation, or our collective demise?
If you wish to find your own answer, you’ll need to watch Wild Diamond soon. It’s a work of art like no other and a film I’ll be living with, inside my thoughts for a while.
Photo courtesy of Silex Films, used with permission.