At the crossroads of extreme trends, at the end of the cinematic year, two teenagers who are completely opposite meet, in two films that are completely separate, and which show the extensible qualities of current non-commercial French cinema. I summarize. Totone (Clément Faveau) is 18 years old, has a dog-like personality and a 70 cc motorcycle. Not much more. His father has just died in a car accident for which he, Totone, feels partly responsible: he should not have helped his father, in a very advanced state of drunkenness, get into his car to go home. him. It must be said that Totone was not clear either. Don’t ask me where the mother is, we don’t know.
It takes place in the mountains, in the Jura, a magnificent country where they make an excellent cheese, Comté. Totone therefore finds himself heir to a failing farm and a 7-year-old little sister. Everyone sympathizes: “What can I do for you, Totone? – Could you lend me some money? – It’s because, at the moment, it’s difficult. – Why do you requests, then?” And so on. He is alone, and even more so because he has to accompany his sister to school. The only reasonable way out of all this: sell his father’s tractor and go to work at the county factory.
Love, this filth, will twist the outline of a life too ordinary for this impulsive blond. When it comes to sex, Marie-Lise (Maïwène Barthélémy) is really accommodating. Be patient with this virgin, because it doesn’t work that well. She doesn’t wonder why, doesn’t laugh. Yes, there are some like that, even in the mountains and surrounded by rowdy partygoers. It is the first feature film by Louise Courvoisier which, in her own way, tells the story of her life, her country, the people and the love that is not necessarily filth. The title, Twenty Godsis the only fault of this beautiful film.
Christmas in Monaco is a blast
At the other end of the territory, on the edge of the Mediterranean, where it’s no longer even France because people are so bored with money, to the point of the ugliness of everything that should be beautiful: jewelry, clothes, palaces, even the sea has something fake, and in speculative art galleries, the works of the greatest artists look fake.
Virgil Vernier, the director of 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred thousand billion) chose to film Monaco at Christmas. I know a couple who gave birth to their child in Monaco to ensure a tax-advantaged future. Christmas in Monaco is a blast. Vernier films this very well. Cities are often the main characters in his films. In this one, he placed teenagers. Three girls and a boy who make a career out of their bodies. Aftine (played by Zakaria Bouti) is the same age as Totone, he doesn’t drink like the little mountain man. He injects collagen into his lips to be even more beautiful, even younger, even more sensual than last time. Even more fuckable. However, the rich woman, of a certain age and overweight, she doesn’t care about the size of her lips when she gets kissed on the mouth by the pool. She waddles. He smiles. Ah how happy she is in the company of this handsome boy who carries her extra shopping bags during this endless afternoon of shopping.
“You can’t stay like that, Tandie,” his fellow escorts lecture him. You have to do something with your life.
They have good ones. He doesn’t know what he wants to do in life. He likes taking care of Julia. She is 6 years old, her rich parents are having fun in Gstaad and have entrusted her to her nanny who is not amused at all, and who has passed the kid on to Tandie, who likes Julia, she who tells him stories . Maybe he didn’t have a childhood, Tandie. The spectator imagines what he wants. For me, the Julia of One hundred thousand billion and the Marie-Lise of Twenty Gods form a single archetype: the protective godmother of vulnerable teenagers.
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