On the surface Maurice Pialat's "A Nos
Amours" is about a promiscuous young girl and the film deals with both
the dynamics of her sex life and her home life. You may say not much
happens conventionally; the girl sleeps around and her life is observed
episodically but you might also say the film is about the dynamics of
acting. As the girl, Suzanne, 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire, making her
film debut, is virtually never off the screen and in her extraordinarily
naturalistic performance it's almost impossible to know where Bonnaire
ends and her character begins.
Pialat himself plays the father
with a world-weariness that makes you wonder how much of himself he had
poured into the part or why he hadn't chosen another actor for the role.
As Suzanne's mother and brother Evelyne Ker and Dominique Besnehard are
equally brilliant and make for a very realistic and dysfunctional
family. It is, of course, very 'French', full of amour fou and Gallic
passion and is certainly not the kind of film a British or American
director might have made and for a film full of characters you are
unlikely to empathise with or like it nevertheless holds you in a
vice-like grip. It is also one of Pialat's finest achievements.
On the surface Maurice Pialat's "A Nos
Amours" is about a promiscuous young girl and the film deals with both
the dynamics of her sex life and her home life. You may say not much
happens conventionally; the girl sleeps around and her life is observed
episodically but you might also say the film is about the dynamics of
acting. As the girl, Suzanne, 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire, making her
film debut, is virtually never off the screen and in her extraordinarily
naturalistic performance it's almost impossible to know where Bonnaire
ends and her character begins.
Pialat himself plays the father
with a world-weariness that makes you wonder how much of himself he had
poured into the part or why he hadn't chosen another actor for the role.
As Suzanne's mother and brother Evelyne Ker and Dominique Besnehard are
equally brilliant and make for a very realistic and dysfunctional
family. It is, of course, very 'French', full of amour fou and Gallic
passion and is certainly not the kind of film a British or American
director might have made and for a film full of characters you are
unlikely to empathise with or like it nevertheless holds you in a
vice-like grip. It is also one of Pialat's finest achievements.
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