An Impudent Girl

When I lived in Sheffield, I was fortunate enough to have a really good video store opposite my house. I lived in Walkley; Johnny Briggs terraces, bends in the roads, bacon rolls, northern bakeries and a fug of chimney smoke in the winter. It was a beautiful place to be on a Sunday morning.
The video store catered for us poncey students and I used to march across from time to time, scarf flaring, for some art house fare. Godard lost a bit in translation on my portable black and white telly, a Mitsubishi number you had to bang on the side to get going and decorated with an Offbeat sticker.
I had a faint recollection of An Impudent Girl when I rented it... I half remembered it being on TV in the late 1980s, maybe as part of a series of European films about childhood. My Life As A Dog was on around the same time I'm sure.

Charlotte Gainsbourg was the star of the movie, and when I started to watch it the memory of it flooded back. I remembered her awkwardness... I guess she was maybe 12 or 13 when it was filmed, probably around the age I was when I first saw it. The film was made in 1985 and really looked like it but there was such deftness in Charlotte's direction, such nervousness and honesty. It's so difficult to believe children in movies speaking in your native tongue, you know the nuances of the language, you recognise the merest hesitation and stiffness in delivery... but move everything to a different country and suddenly your heart is breaking!

I remembered this because I read a review of Charlotte's new record in the paper yesterday. I had a quick research on the internet to refresh my memory about the movie - I haven't seen the film since 1998. It seems very difficult to find now. But what I remember about the film is the way it dealt so gently with the nature of childhood crushes, so soft before any interference from hormones and understanding. People you would meet in the summer... who you'd just want to be around, you'd just want to spend time with. These people would all be so graceful!

I subconsciously categorise people as those who get crushes and those who don't. I side with the people who have crushes. After I saw An Impudent Girl in 1998 I wrote a bundle of songs about that.
 
John
 
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Tenement detail by Alice Duncan