『First Love Beyond Fear, a Poetic Summer of Self-Discovery』
🎥 Movie Overview
🎬 Title: The Summer of Sangailė (Sangailės vasara, 2015)
🌍 Country: 🇱🇹 Lithuania
🎞️ Genre: Youth / Coming-of-Age / Female Queer Romance
📢 Director & Screenwriter: Alantė Kavaitė
📺 Platform: Netflix / Amazon Prime / YouTube (varies by country)
👩💼 Cast: Julija Steponaitytė – Sangailė
Aistė Diržiūtė – Austė
🧩 Story Deep Dive (Spoilers)
🌤️ Hidden Dreams and Isolation Amid Fear
17-year-old Sangailė is fascinated by stunt flying, but due to her fear of heights and low self-esteem, she cannot bring herself to sit in the cockpit. She is introverted, lost, and hides the secret of self-harm. Her relationship with her wealthy parents is somewhat distant.
🧷 Reconstructing the Self Through Love
During the summer, she meets a lively and creative girl her age, Austė, at an air show. Austė is interested in photography, fashion, and art, and unlike Sangailė, she is confident and outgoing. The two girls quickly grow close and their bond develops into a romantic relationship.
👗 An Inner Transformation
Austė helps Sangailė discover her inner and outer beauty through photography and clothing. Sangailė eventually confides her deepest secret—her self-harm—to Austė. Austė becomes her emotional anchor, helping her begin to overcome the habit of hurting herself.
🛫 The Courage to Take the Controls
Thanks to Austė’s support and encouragement, Sangailė finds the courage to pursue her dream of flying. She eventually confronts her fear and takes on the challenge of flight. The film delicately portrays the story of two girls discovering themselves and growing through the passion of first love in the fleeting season of summer.
🦋 Emotional Resonance and Thematic Meaning
🌸 Visual Aesthetics: Light, Air, and Sensuality
The Summer of Sangailė uses light, wind, color, and sound to convey emotion through poetic direction. Dresses under the summer sun, shimmering reflections on the water, and quiet gestures create a sensory and lyrical mise-en-scène that captures the anxieties and hopes of youth with delicacy. Intimate moments between Austė and Sangailė—especially their first sexual connection—are staged not with explicitness but with a deep sensuality. Close-up shots of body parts (hands, stomach, eyes) and detailed editing poetically express the intense thrill and physical awareness of first love. This avoids common lesbian film clichés and voyeuristic male gaze, instead presenting a female gaze marked by subtlety and respect.
🎥 Characters and Relationships: Harmony of Darkness and Light
- Sangailė (Darkness and Desire): An introverted and anxious soul hiding the secret of self-harm. She dreams of flying but is trapped by her fear of heights. In her distant relationship with her parents (particularly her mother, once a ballerina), she wanders, unable to embody the strength implied by her name (which means “strength” in Lithuanian).
- Austė (Light and Catalyst): Bright, free-spirited, and filled with artistic talent and confidence. She plays the role of a “catalyst” who helps Sangailė embrace herself. Austė dresses her, takes photos of her, and encourages her to see her own beauty and potential. Some critics have noted that Austė’s background is underdeveloped, making her seem like a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” figure whose role is primarily to aid Sangailė’s growth.
Their relationship goes beyond romance and becomes a process of healing and self-acceptance for Sangailė. When Austė sees her scars, she suggests overcoming them together, offering Sangailė the reassurance that “I am not alone.”
🌿 A Beautiful but Somewhat Simple Coming-of-Age Tale
The Summer of Sangailė, directed by Alantė Kavaitė, harmonizes stunning visual beauty, the dreamlike music of Jean-Benoît Dunckel (of Air), and the luminous chemistry of the two leads to capture the intensity of first love.
However, as some critics have noted, Sangailė’s inner conflicts (self-harm, family issues, etc.) are presented somewhat abstractly or resolved only later in the film, which makes the narrative depth fall short of its visual beauty. Nevertheless, this film deserves recognition as a sensory and poetic LGBTQ+ coming-of-age masterpiece that portrays how a wandering teenager overcomes fear and affirms her identity through love.
🎯 Personal Rating
💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★★
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