THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
If you were not captivated by the landscapes of your vacation, Where the crayfish sing can be a pleasant alternative. Enter the coastal swamps of North Carolina (the film was actually shot in Louisiana), which, in director Olivia Newman’s eye, knows no mud or silt and very few crocodiles. Glide on translucent water, enjoy the shimmer of feathers and Spanish moss and fly over a canopy of cypresses… Only, expect nothing more from this cinema session than an effect comparable to background music to accompany the end of your summer.
At the origin of this exotic truce, a best-seller which has “defying the laws of gravity”according to American specialists: wrapped in its blanket adorned with a sunset, Where the crayfish sing surpassed sales of Stephen King and Margaret Atwood in 2019, reaching 12 million copies. That success goes to a 70-year-old fledgling novelist, American zoologist Delia Owens, known for her hard and controversial conservation work in Africa.
Produced by Hello Sunshine, actress Reese Witherspoon’s company, which intends to promote women – there are many of them in key positions in this production – the film faithfully follows the romantic plot between police investigation and learning tale. But the outrageous aestheticization of the swamp, filmed by cinematographer Polly Morgan, contradicts the initial story: namely the nightmare of Kya Clark, an abandoned child in the 1950s, who had no choice but to pick up the mussels, barefoot, aboard his tub. Nicknamed “the Girl of the swamp” by the inhabitants of the neighboring hamlet of Barkley Cove, she finds herself accused of the murder of a young man who fell from a watchtower in the late 1960s.
Idyllic flashback
To appreciate the beauty of the place, you have to close your eyes to Kya’s Dickensian destiny and her cleverly appointed little cabin filled with books, hippie-chic cushions and perfectly fitted floral dresses. An interesting point all the same in this film affected by mythomania: Kya, as a wild and fragile little doe (the big eyes of Daisy Edgar-Jones noticed in the series Normal People), discovered a talent for naturalist painting, of the caliber of the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Audubon, who drew in the 19e century all the birds of America at their real size in a large-scale project, Birds of America. You will see beautiful sketches.
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