seen at the London Flare Festival on 24 March 2017
André Téchiné directs Kacey Mottet-Klein as Damien, Corentin Fila as Thomas, and Sandrine Kiberlain and Alexis Loret as Damien's parents, in a film covering nine months in the lives of the two seventeen-year-olds, coinciding with the difficult pregnancy of Thomas's adoptive mother.
Thomas hikes through the snow to reach the school bus; he and Damien are both loners but are also antipathetic to one another; casual insults lead to fights. But Damien's mother, the town doctor, unaware of these tensions, invites Thomas to stay at their house in order to give him more time to study. Even though Thomas would prefer to stay on his mountain farm, he agrees, but the two boys are still wary, and Damien is to some extent jealous of the attention his mother pays to the visitor (his father is away with the French army in the Middle East). The simmering rivalry gradually turns to erotic fascination, which only complicates matters even further when Damien becomes more demonstrative than Thomas is prepared for.
The film convincingly shows the turbulence of adolescence, and in particular how non-verbal the emotional storms might be. The boys are not especially good with words, even when trying to reach a rapprochement, and so physical expressions of frustration and anger are their main outlet.
There is also a strong sense of the importance of landscape - the film is set in the Pyrenees, and Thomas especially revels in the natural environment; the snowbound walk is not a burden for him, apart from the time it takes, and he clearly enjoys his farm work. This is reflected in some wonderful cinematography featuring the passage of the seasons in the high hills.
Where Die Mitte der Welt was somewhat whimsical with its genially self-assured narrator and easy acceptance of sexual expression, this film is both more restrained and probably more realistic in its depiction of adolescent uncertainty and moodiness. The two young leads play off one another very well, both in their initial antagonistic encounters, and later when coming to terms with their more passionate feelings.
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