Céline Sciamma's water lilies: adolescent sexual discovery and the expression of sexual desire

Abstract

Céline Sciamma’s 2007 youth film Water Lilies presents the sexual desires and discoveries of three girls in the midst of their gender identity in a very feminine form of expression. The film does not specify the specific sexual orientation of the characters, but rather shows the confusion of adolescence and the pain of teenage throbbing in the process of exploration. The article analyzes how the three girls cope with and express their adolescent sexuality in three ways: firstly, the flexible use of the water element, which represents femininity, and the use of the central axis of the camera to construct highly stylized scenes; secondly, it explores the significance of the girls’ body language in the expression of desire, criticizing the habit of thinking about women as objects of male desire, and showing the expression of desire for the same sex and men from the female perspective; finally, the film uses camera language (such as the use of filters, voyeuristic shots, etc.) to visualize the sense of touch in female desire, and shows the delicate emotional changes in the film through the analysis of continuous shots.