Dix-huit kilomètres trois
2018 · 5m
Directed by Justine Thibault, Maïlis Colombie, Manon Serda
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
On their way to meet their friend Lucie, three girls walk through the countryside and enjoy these moments of freedom together.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Three girls walking to meet a friend—sounds like the setup for something precious and safe, which is exactly why I'm not touching it. Unless those 18.3 kilometers are doing something I can't predict, this feels like the kind of coming-of-age shorthand that's already been canonized to death.
A deliberate, attentive study in the Dardenne tradition—modest in scope, patient with duration, trusting that the rhythm of bodies moving through landscape carries its own gravity. The French countryside as a space where girlhood becomes visible precisely because nothing is forced to happen.
What gets me is the constraint they've accepted: five minutes, one journey, three people, no plot engine—and somehow that walk becomes the whole film, which means every glance and silence has to *do* something. That's the kind of economic choice that separates a genuine filmmaker from someone just pointing a camera at pretty girls.