Jeune & jolie (2013)
Country: FR
Technical: col 95m
Director: François Ozon
Cast: Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot, Johan Leysen, Charlotte Rampling
Synopsis:
Untransported by her first sexual encounter, seventeen year-old Isabelle (aka Léa) appropriates her mother's wardrobe and sells her favours to men she meets online.
Review:
The ravishing 'froideur' of this particular belle de jour inevitably recalls Buñuel's masterpiece, especially in view of Ozon's surrealist credentials (the film also echoes Sitcom). However, in spite of the increased explicitness of the sexual encounters, we are no closer to what Isabelle actually derives from the experience, although we might sympathise with her lack of passion for her lumpen teenage paramours compared with the relative delicacy and experience of her regular sixty year-old 'John'. More interesting, but barely sketched in, is her younger brother, initially sexually curious, but then less so, as his evidently incipient homosexuality endows him with a new reticence. Meanwhile the characterisation of the mother and stepfather fail to steer clear of cliché, just as the representation of prostitution itself might draw accusations of glamorisation (less valid: since when was Ozon's cinema realistic?)
Country: FR
Technical: col 95m
Director: François Ozon
Cast: Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot, Johan Leysen, Charlotte Rampling
Synopsis:
Untransported by her first sexual encounter, seventeen year-old Isabelle (aka Léa) appropriates her mother's wardrobe and sells her favours to men she meets online.
Review:
The ravishing 'froideur' of this particular belle de jour inevitably recalls Buñuel's masterpiece, especially in view of Ozon's surrealist credentials (the film also echoes Sitcom). However, in spite of the increased explicitness of the sexual encounters, we are no closer to what Isabelle actually derives from the experience, although we might sympathise with her lack of passion for her lumpen teenage paramours compared with the relative delicacy and experience of her regular sixty year-old 'John'. More interesting, but barely sketched in, is her younger brother, initially sexually curious, but then less so, as his evidently incipient homosexuality endows him with a new reticence. Meanwhile the characterisation of the mother and stepfather fail to steer clear of cliché, just as the representation of prostitution itself might draw accusations of glamorisation (less valid: since when was Ozon's cinema realistic?)
Country: FR
Technical: col 95m
Director: François Ozon
Cast: Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot, Johan Leysen, Charlotte Rampling
Synopsis:
Untransported by her first sexual encounter, seventeen year-old Isabelle (aka Léa) appropriates her mother's wardrobe and sells her favours to men she meets online.
Review:
The ravishing 'froideur' of this particular belle de jour inevitably recalls Buñuel's masterpiece, especially in view of Ozon's surrealist credentials (the film also echoes Sitcom). However, in spite of the increased explicitness of the sexual encounters, we are no closer to what Isabelle actually derives from the experience, although we might sympathise with her lack of passion for her lumpen teenage paramours compared with the relative delicacy and experience of her regular sixty year-old 'John'. More interesting, but barely sketched in, is her younger brother, initially sexually curious, but then less so, as his evidently incipient homosexuality endows him with a new reticence. Meanwhile the characterisation of the mother and stepfather fail to steer clear of cliché, just as the representation of prostitution itself might draw accusations of glamorisation (less valid: since when was Ozon's cinema realistic?)