Summer Nights

Of course, we could go on and on about these skateboarders, symbolizing the frivolous, light-hearted youth who are bored and lost in these remote, isolated suburban streets; we could also argue that the real skateboarder is the one who smashes his face in, who does it again 25 times in front of the camera, and who waits his turn after his buddy has picked up his knees, elbows and everything else left on the ground... Bring up the trash talk, the joints and the scooter. Point out the kid's dreams, the male pride in the books we read on the sly and so on. It would show that we've got it all figured out: the beautiful summer nights, the wandering, the aftermath and the maybes. That delicate period when loitering is allowed and authority pretty much disintegrates: parents are upstairs and school is forgotten. But I don't think it's necessary to intellectualize, characterize, or compartmentalize this film into themes and broad outlines. What the director manages to sublimate here is not the birds in the sky, the shiny Ferris wheel cloaked in blue light... but the simple gaze of a young man who avoids questions about love, answering his interlocutor half-heartedly with his gaze drifting to the sound of wheels, slamming boards and the encouragement of his buddies next door. 

Rémi Journet
Tënk's editorial assistant