The rising filmmaker Atlan has completely transformed the legendary novella that inspired films by Robbe-Grillet and Albertazzi. There is no ‘bas-relief of a woman walking gracefully (Gradiva)’ here. Jensen’s novella, which Freud analyzed in an essay, was originally a story of repressed desire and love. Having made Daniel, a dreamlike film about a boy and a girl, Atlan replaces the archaeologist of the original with a group of adolescents. A group of French high school students travel to Pompeii. The film does more than probe the nature of adolescence; it traces and captures in full the moments that shake that period of life to its very core. The setting inevitably calls Journey to Italy to mind, while a certain aching tenderness evokes Picnic at Hanging Rock, but this is, through and through, Atlan’s own film. Light as a feather yet heavy as time - that is La Gradiva. It is the year’s true revelation. (LEE Yong-cheol)