The Summer of Sangaile

Distractingly lovely to look at, the film can't make Sangaile's struggles or triumphs matter.

It's a movie of lovely surfaces that only alludes to and rarely explores what is happening beneath them.

Dreamy and delicate, trite and oh so earnest, "The Summer of Sangaile" presents a soft-core frolic in teenage Sapphic bliss with the solemnity of a world-shattering event.

"Thanks for being you," Sangaile says to Auste at one point. It's a simple statement, maybe a little sentimental, but in this tale of young love, it works.

Awash with ripe, voluptuous summertime imagery and brimming with aborning adolescent female sexuality, The Summer of Sangaile is an appealingly simple, poetically conceived teen coming-of-age tale.

There's something cold about Sangaile.

The female adolescent love story feels sensuously fresh. . .The beauty of Dominique Colin's gorgeous cinematography swirls with youthful passion and optimism.

Kavaïté portrays the doubts one can have with love at a certain age without forcing any type of drama on the viewer. Not an easy thing to do. [Full review in Spanish]

The Summer of Sangaile is an intimately involving celebration of the fiery passions that accompany pivotal periods of adolescence.

Writer-director Alanté Kavaité's film is a string of softly weaved pictorial metaphors steeped in reverie.

Director Alanté Kavaïté has a unique and talented eye, but she can only do so much to make this compelling material beyond its aesthetic charms.

As sensual as it is lushly shot.