The fleetingness of young love has been the subject of many a coming-of-age film, but it has rarely been conveyed with as much intimacy and as strong a central metaphor as in Cocoon, Leonie Krippendorff’s 2020 follow-up to her 2016 feature debut Looping. The film follows 14-year-old Nora (Lena Urzendowsky) as she navigates her transition into pre-adulthood over the course of one summer in Berlin.
She has a love-hate relationship with her sister, her mother is a drunk, and she tends to look at girls differently than how she looks at boys. One of the few things Nora takes solace in is raising her pet caterpillars. All the day-to-day struggles Nora faces play a role in her self-discovery, but it is not until she meets Romy (Jella Haase) that Nora begins a rapid love-fueled journey towards finding out who she truly is.
The performances and camerawork in Cocoon lend to its realism and naturalistic feel. Urzendowsky is astonishing as the young Nora, giving an entirely unassuming performance that carries the film’s occasionally unfocused narrative across the finish line. The cinematography by D.P. Martin Neumeyer plays a part in the film’s intimate nature, employing long lenses and handheld camerawork to implement a style reminiscent of cinéma vérité. This style makes the film feel evocative of works such as Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 or, more recently, Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love.
One of the framing devices in Krippendorff’s film is Nora’s video diaries, iPhone clips shot in 9:16 that give us a glimpse into the young teenager’s mind as she tries to decode all of the changes happening around her. The film then switches to the more formal 4:3 aspect ratio for the overarching narrative, giving Nora just enough space to move about her world but not much space to change within it. The black bars on either side of the frame start to feel restricting, keeping Nora sheltered until a moment of catharsis with Romy late in the film, when the bars expand and the image fills the entire screen for the first time.
Cocoon ends with one of Nora’s caterpillars blossoming into a butterfly after the audience has seen Nora blossom herself. It is a striking metaphor to cap off a beautiful, youthful film. Cocoon fits comfortably in with the recent string of female-directed films dealing with sexuality and would fit well in any media librarian’s drama or coming-of-age sections. It would also make for great pride or LGBTQ+ library and educational programming.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
Any collection of films centering around Drama, LGBTQ, Romance, or Coming-of-Age films would benefit from the addition of Cocoon.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Cocoon would fit well in a program centered around Women Directors, Women's Studies, Coming of Age, and LGBTQ+ films.
Would this film be suitable for an outdoor screening?
This film would be great for an outdoor screening as it takes place during a hot Berlin summer.