Premier Automne
2012 · 10m · France
Directed by Aude Danset, Carlos de Carvalho
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, mythic
Abel, who lives in an eternal winter, and Apolline, who lives in summer, are never meant to meet; when Abel crosses the boundary between their worlds, each child learns to live with the idea that life has an end.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The eternal winter/summer split is elegant setup, sure, but it plays it so straight—where's the perversity, the sting? Two kids learning mortality through a fairy-tale boundary feels like it's *supposed* to feel mythic, and that's exactly why it doesn't quite earn it.
A film that knows its debts to classical animation and allegorical storytelling, executing them with such formal precision that the melancholy lands; the boundary between worlds becomes a sophisticated visual argument about impermanence and acceptance that feels genuinely earned.
The choice to hold on static frames of seasonal transition—letting the palette shift while the children remain still—is what transforms this from premise into something that breathes; it's a production decision made on a budget that suggests these directors understood exactly where the weight needed to live.
Reviews
« Premier Automne » est un film entier qui parvient en à peine dix minutes à traiter de sujets aussi complexes que fondamentaux avec autant de simplicité que de profondeur. « Premier Automne » parle avec justesse de la vie et de la mort sans qu'un seul mot soit prononcé.