A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list, I was quite eager to check it out. I also loved the title which sounded so poetic and, to be honest, it was slightly disappointing that it was after all referring to some disease the main character caught after some scouting camp. In fact, it was my girlfriend who came up with this movie on DVD and I thought she was interested in Louis Malle’s work like I was but, in fact, she had bought it because there was a very cool soundtrack with Charlie Parker (she is herself a professional jazz musician). Anyway, we both didn’t know what this movie was about and we both were not aware of its controversial reputation. As a result, we were both rather shocked by the incest between Laurent and his sexy Italian mother which actually happened rather randomly towards the end after some heavy drinking. It was the tricky thing, sure, it was obviously a coming-of-age tale and a very good one but I thought we were dropped a little bit in the middle of it without much context. For example, I wasn’t familiar with Lea Massari at all, I did notice that she had a rather heavy accent but it was only halfway through that I finally figured out that she was actually Italian. Even more later on, we found out that she was only 16 years old when she met her husband and something never told in the movie which I found later on was the fact that he was actually 15 years older than her. This information was actually quite crucial as it meant that, mentally and emotionally, she started to be closer to her boys than her husband, explaining a good deal her relationship with her children. Anyway, the movie was above all about Laurent who was one of the best depictions of adolescence I have ever seen. It also helped that Benoît Ferreux, in his first movie, was the same age as his character was and not 10 years older like you very often get with US movies dealing with teenagers. Everything what he was going through was so relatable and it reminded me a lot of who I was back then. Eventually, this movie perfectly displayed this complex confused time in your life when you stop being a little boy and start to become a grown-up. Anyway, to conclude, even though I’m not sure if everything worked in this movie, it was definitely an intriguing watch, no doubt about it. 

7/10