“A clear-eyed and profoundly moving ode to life and death.”

Five years after her first film Moon, 66 Questions premiered at Berlin and marked her as a talent to watch, Greek filmmaker Jacqueline Lentzou returns in Venice’s Orizzonti sidebar with A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra (Mia Mera sti Zoi tis Tzo: Kefalaio Faidra), which confirms her as a filmmaker with a singular vision, attuned to the sensibilities of young women coming of age and into their sense of self. Lentzou’s sophomore feature follows a regular day in Athens for 15-year-old Jo (Evita Andriopoulou) before a tragic twist of fate alters the course of her life. But within this mundane adolescence Lentzou crafts a film of overwhelming beauty and emotional truth, intertwining the everyday and the cosmic to examine the breadth of existence in human and spiritual forms.

The film’s link to a realm beyond our own is apparent from the opening moments, in which symbolic items appear in the hazy netherworld of Jo’s dreams, before she awakens to a typical school day. The events that unfold throughout the day will be familiar to any teenager: Jo misses the bus, she argues with her mother, she attends classes and hangs out with old and new friends. What makes this exploration of adolescent life so enchanting is how well Lentzou understands the younger generation and the push and pull between the comforts of adolescence and uncertainty about one’s true sense of self and how the future will unfold. Most important is the tenderness that Lentzou has for her heroine while also allowing her to exist in all of her complexity: Jo can be bratty, outgoing, sullen, jokey, and lovestruck, like so many teenagers. Newcomer Andriopoulou is a naturalistic, charming presence as Jo; she feels like a real teenager rather than an adult filmmaker’s idea of how a teenager acts and thinks. While most films about teenage life exaggerate emotions and dialogue for cinematic effect, Lentzou’s teenagers are true to life: awkward and charming, outgoing and introverted, obsessed with everything from sports to music to social media. There is a warmth to even the most banal moments, a clear affection for the carefree and low-stakes school environment before Jo and her friends are confronted with the grind of adulthood.

Jo is at ease with her more raucous friends and the Greek pop and rap music that soundtracks their hangouts, but in an extended sequence that is deeply affecting in its simplicity, she is left awestruck by more introverted student Phaedra (Anastasia Gouliamou) and her rendition of an old folk song. The purity of Phaedra’s voice awakens unexpected feelings in Jo; Lentzou uses song as a vessel through which teenage intensity is both expressed and received. When the two girls later meet by chance in the school library, a bond quickly forms between them, signaling an introspective new phase for Jo. The blossoming relationship between them exemplifies the power of adolescent exploration, where new friendships and new discoveries provide a rush of euphoria. Andriopoulou and Gouliamou are incredibly charming in their scenes together, and the possibility of a close, profound relationship between Jo and Phaedra renders the monumental shift in the final act all the more melancholy for the potential that remains unfulfilled.

While the film spends the majority of its runtime following Jo, Lentzou’s humanist streak also manifests itself in the brief scenes where the focus switches to Jo’s mother. Seen through her daughter’s eyes, she’s a bitter woman stuck in a depressive slump many years after her divorce. While the switch in perspective doesn’t totally dispel this notion (she’s seen berating a class of amateur dancers that she teaches), moments such as singing along to Roxy Music’s “Flesh and Blood”, dancing herself into a state of collapse while teaching, or when she hesitates in front of Jo’s bedroom door, yearning to reconnect with her increasingly distant daughter, provide glimpses of the loving and carefree woman who has been beaten down by the emotional toll of single parenthood.

When the film enters the ethereal realm in its final 30 minutes, it is a radical break with what has come before, but it is also where the film reaches a state of transcendence that elevates it to the level of near-masterpiece. Lentzou makes bold artistic choices here (most notably her visual conception of spirits and conveying dialogue via subtitles), daring the audience to abandon themselves to a sensory, primal exploration of a state of being beyond the human experience. This is reinforced by the shift in aesthetic to a style favoring film-like grain, extended sequences of psychedelic images that miraculously feel new, and bold use of color which makes the dreamlike state concrete and conveys a deeply personal vision of what the afterlife could be. The effect is hypnotic, building to a beautiful final moment of connection between mother and daughter. This shift to a transitory, ephemeral space and a more avant-garde style may prove challenging to some viewers, but for those willing to give themselves over to Lentzou’s sensorial proposition it is a deeply moving and rewarding experience.

Melding the earthly and the cosmic is a risky proposition, but Lentzou’s approach, simultaneously delicate and bold, works wonders. She has given us a tale of adolescence that should immediately enter the canon of great coming-of-age films, fusing it effortlessly with a singular depiction of transitioning to a higher plane of existence. With poignancy and warmth, she tackles a subject that could easily become saccharine and maudlin and renders it a clear-eyed and profoundly moving ode to life and death.