Summary
Chris, a baker’s boy, is dismissed by his employer when he turns up for work late.
He loses not just his job but also his home since the room he lives in is provided as
part of his meagre salary. Through his friend Léon, he meets a trade
union official who tells him that his dismissal was unlawful and that he is entitled to
compensation. Whilst waiting for his employer to pay him the money he is owed, Chris
barricades himself in his room with Léon, his girlfriend Rosette and a Swedish
girl Liv. Chris’ employer, however, has no intention of paying up and threatens
to call the police unless his hot-headed former employee leaves his room...
Review
With this, his first full-length film, director Jacques Doillon evokes not only the memory
but also the spirit of the popular uprisings which shook French society in May 1968.
Les Doigts dans la tête accurately reflects the burgeoning disillusionment
of a generation of young people with a society which failed to take them seriously.
As the film demonstrates, it is not just a case of teenage angst or adolescent rebellion,
although these no doubt provided the impetus for the reaction seen in 1968 and the years
that followed. At the time, young people were not accorded the same working rights
as older citizens, and they were generally maltreated by a generation that clearly resented
the freedom and quality of life they appeared to have. Those who had endured the
hardship of the last world war and the humility of the Nazi Occupation had good reason
to be envious and secretly bitter, and it was the generation born immediately after the
war who suffered as a result. The events of 1968 were an inevitable consequence
of post-war prosperity.
With its rough-and-ready, naturalistic presentation and young cast, Les Doigts dans
la tête is also quite redolent of the French New Wave, a period between the
late 1950s and mid-1970s which marked a radical change in both the content and form of
films, resulting from the insurgence of a wealth of new filmmaking talent. On the
basis of this film alone, it is safe to place Jacques Doillon alongside the other great
directors of the Nouvelle Vague - and his subsequent films often evoke the better works
of Truffaut, Rivette and Rohmer.
With its satisfying blend of social realism and ironic humour, Les Doigts dans la tête
offers a portrayal of adolescence which is both convincing and sympathetic.
It vividly conveys the schism between two generations who found mutual coexistence virtually
impossible, a schism fuelled by an irrational contempt and mutual distrust. Yet
it is a more complex film than that. The relationship between the four young characters
is constantly evolving, and, in the end, they end up erecting barricades not just against
the outside world, but between each other as they discover their own differences.
In addition to being a respectable social drama, providing an invaluable record of the
time when it was made, Les Doigts dans la tête is also a work of great humanist
appeal, exploring human relationships with insight, poetry and a certain amount of good
humour.
© James Travers 2003
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