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Le Plus bel âge...
1995 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Didier Haudepin
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Script: Didier Haudepin, Claire Mercier
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Photo: Jean-Marc Fabre
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Music: Alexandre Desplat
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Cast: Élodie Bouchez (Delphine),
Melvil Poupaud (Axel),
Sophie Aubry (Claude.),
Gaël Morel (Bertrand),
Myriam Boyer (La mère de Bertrand),
Marcel Bozonnet (Le professeur de khâgne),
Benjamin Mercier (Pierre),
Bégonia Zuazaga (Bégonia),
Nicolas Koretzky (André),
Estelle Larrivaz (Estelle),
Sylvie Testud (Sylvie),
Tara Römer (Michel),
Richard Djoudi (Olivier),
Laurent Morel (Charles)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 85 min
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Aka: Those Were the Days
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Summary
A few weeks into a preparatory course for entry to the prestigious École Normale
Supérieure, Delphine witnesses the suicide of a fellow student, Claude. Traumatised
by the experience – which is made more acute by the fact that Claude spoke to her a short
while before she killed herself, Delphine finds herself drawn to unravel the mystery of
the tragic death. She is attracted to Claude’s charismatic boyfriend, Axel, in spite
of his cruelty and extreme political views. Axel agrees to have sex with Delphine
if she first manages to sleep with Claude’s brother, Bertrand, a cadet who hopes to enter
the elite military academy, St. Cyr. Through Bertrand, Delphine finds out more about
Claude’s life and comes ever closer to the reason for her suicide...
Review
Le Plus bel âge offers a brutal depiction of the vagaries of student life
in the clique-ridden waiting room to the Grandes Écoles. The setting, with
its obscene initiation ceremonies, surfeit of political pretensions and general moral
laxity cleverly emphasises the vulnerability and confusion of young people as they struggle
to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The film’s abstract narrative
style – which often uses bizarre visual cues in place of explanatory dialogue – gives
it an unusual, dream-like feel, although it does occasionally weaken the narrative flow.
This is a strikingly atmospheric work – intense, dark and at times extremely disturbing.
Certainly, the world portrayed in this film is not a world you would want to enter willingly.
What most makes Le Plus bel âge such an effective and absorbing film is its
extraordinarily talented cast, which is headed by the magnificent Élodie Bouchez
and the sublimely enigmatic Melvil Poupaud. In the role of Delphine, Bouchez is
playing the part in which she excels: a sexually confused young woman from a deprived
background who is at the mercy of both external events and her own impulses.
Poupaud is also cast in the kind of role for which he is best known – a mysterious, possibly
dangerous character of dubious morals, yet who is inwardly carrying more than his fair
share of tragic vulnerability. With his satanic good looks and aptitude for portraying
an ambiguous kind of evil, Poupaud makes his character an irresistible Mephistophelian
charmer – a fiend who appears all the more powerful alongside the apparent naivety and
fragility of Bouchez’s character. Sophie Aubry and Gaël Morel complete
the impressive quartet and make Le Plus bel âge a harrowing and strangely
compelling work which provides a rare glimpse into the darker side of young people trying
to discover their identity.
© James Travers 2003
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