Cinematographer Hélène Louvart on Murina and more
This week, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish talk to a cinematographer who’s worked with everyone from Agnès Varda to Wim Wenders to Eliza Hittman to Alice Rohrwacher. Over the last three decades, Hélène Louvart has acquired a reputation for her gorgeous lensing of women’s stories and her ability to capture movement with rare immediacy and grace. Hélène’s talents are on striking display in Murina, a new coming-of-age film directed by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic. Murina tells the story of a Croatian teen (played by newcomer Gracija Filipović) navigating a treacherous passage to adulthood in an intensely patriarchal milieu. With intimate close-ups, breathtaking underwater sequences, and beautiful shots of the island where the film is set, Hélène’s images give arresting form to the protagonist’s awakening to her own desires. The cinematographer called in from her home in Paris to talk about how she crafted the film’s visual language, the care required to capture women as both subjects and objects of the gaze, and the technical challenges and pleasures of shooting underwater.