A girl tans on a private beach, some time before arguing with her clueless mother but after starting a summer fling with a foreign boy. Right around Valentine’s Day, this has all the trappings of a Hollywood rom-com.
Even ignoring the fact that the film is in French, it will still only take viewers until about 10 minutes into “Jeune et Jolie” — when this 17-year-old girl turns to prostitution — to figure out that they are squarely outside the realm of Hollywood.
“Jeune et Jolie” — “Young and Beautiful” if you are enjoying those English subtitles — opened the 19th annual French Film Festival at the Cable Car Cinema and Cafe last night.
The protagonist goes by Isabelle when she’s in high school, but Lea in more private moments. She’s neither cash-strapped nor coerced into her side-job — she’s experimenting.
Isabelle buys a new phone and sets up calls with clients, carefully avoiding questions from her mother and stepfather. Life goes from strange to stranger when she begins a serious emotional relationship with a john old enough to be her grandfather, though he continues to pay her for her services. As they usually do, things fall apart, and the audience is left wondering what brought this seemingly well-balanced teenager to this point, while Isabelle herself wonders when her mother will stop resenting her for her choices.
The need for motive becomes the all-consuming force of the film. Perhaps she did it because of her detached first sexual encounter on a beach with that German boy. Perhaps it was because of her estranged relationship with her father. Perhaps she liked the power. Isabelle tells varying stories to mother, therapist, stepfather, police and brother alike, and viewers begin to understand how slippery intention can be.
Every once in a while, the movie shifts to a scene straight out of “Mean Girls” or “10 Things I Hate about You” — the high school poetry class, the party where teens try alcohol for the first time as pop music blares in the background. But it does so to remind you this isn’t one of those movies.
It’s a film to make you uncomfortable, to give you questions without answers, to rediscover the idea that not every desire is straightforward and that not every story about sex comes from a male perspective. Fairytale chivalry does not exist in Isabelle’s life — men do not hold the key to her ivory tower.
Hollywood could learn a thing or two. Luckily, from Sundance to Cannes, film festivals tend to be among the best teachers.
Nearing its second decade, the French Film Festival offers its own twists on the typical festival circuit. Sponsored by the University’s French and Modern Culture and Media Departments, the festival offers accessibility to students — four tickets for 20 dollars — and a variety of rarely seen films.
The selections span the French-speaking world. This year’s festivals include films from Canada, Haiti and Belgium, said Richard Manning, the MCM Department’s film archivist and a festival coordinator.
The 2014 festival comprises 19 different films chosen from a broad list that was eventually narrowed down based on availability and cost, Manning said.
While this year’s festival was not planned around a specific theme, “Jeune et Jolie” finds company in its unrelenting realism and propensity for difficult and mature themes. Coming from famous French and Francophone directors like Claude Lanzmann, Xavier Dolan and Mathieu Kassovitz, the films tackle an anti-American look at the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, the life experiences of a transsexual man and a colonial revolution, respectively. “Blue is the Warmest Color,” which has already received attention in the United States as much for its 15-minute sex scene as for its award-worthy performances and frank look at the lives of two young women in love, rounds out the festival on March 2.
For audiences seeking a lighter mood, the festival offers animated features on the weekends and a few comedies, like “Bowling” and “Populaire.”
“It’s not all serious and intense all the way through,” Manning said.
The films have almost all been released within the past year, with the exception of “Far from Vietnam,” a restored1967 documentary. Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, New York City’s French film festival, has first claim on new releases in the United States, limiting those available to Cable Car.
During its 19 years, the festival has expanded beyond its student-based horizons to incorporate the broader Providence community, Manning said, though some French and MCM classes will still suggest or mandate that students attend screenings.
As in last year’s festival, no speakers will be attending — a decision, like the selection of the films themselves, based on cost and availability, Manning said. But the festival has otherwise remained remarkably untouched, he said.
The recent death of long-time festival coordinator Shoggy Waryn, senior lecturer in French Studies, has evoked bittersweet feelings from those in the community.
“This year’s Festival will be tinged with sadness, but I hope that it will also be an opportunity to celebrate cinema the way he would have wanted it,” Ravillon wrote.
ADVERTISEMENT
