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SBIFF: Quint checks out dark coming of age flick IT'S NOT ME, I SWEAR!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first review of the first movie I got to see at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the French-Canadian bizarre coming of age movie IT’S NOT ME, I SWEAR (C’EST PAS MOI, JE LE JURE!).
Santa Barbara usually excels at bringing in odd foreign films… In fact, every film I’ve seen so far at the fest has been foreign… there was this French-Canadian film that we’re going to be talking about now, followed by a flawed Russian Thriller (THE GHOST) and a misfire of a Bollywood film that was an Indian-Swedish co-production (TANDOORI LOVE).
Good or bad, one thing I enjoy about this festival is that I get the chance to see a wide variety of films that I’d never get to see on the big screen, even in a movie-friendly environment like Austin.
I’ve always loved coming of age movies. I obsessively watched STAND BY ME growing up and was even touched by stuff I’d be embarrassed to admit today (like MY GIRL… had a huge crush on Anna Chlumsky, wanted Dan Aykroyd to be my dad and cried when Thomas J. got stung to death), but coming of age films, when done right are up there in my favorite sub-genres of film.
So, I was predisposed to love this movie, I guess. However, what won me over here wasn’t the first romance aspect, but how the lead character, 10 year old Leon Dore (Antoine L’Ecuyer) is essentially a little Damien Thorn, but a couple steps removed. The first time we meet him he’s hanging by his neck in what he calls a “suicide accident.” It’s one long shot of this kid hanging from the tree in his front yard as his brother sees him, runs to him, tries to prop him up, then runs back into the house calling for their mom as his kid brother still hangs, choking to death.
Throughout the film, there are few more of these instances, but through narration and breaking the fourth wall we get an insight into his thought process. It’s not really a dark and brooding film, for all that heavy subject matter, but a film about a boy wrestling with some inner demons, trying to process the fights his parents have and the abandonment he feels when his mother flees for Greece, unable to cope with her life with the family.
He’s a bit like a suicidal Dennis the Menace, except his insight into relationships and other people are surprisingly sharp and adult. In many ways, he is smarter than the adult characters, seeing and calling bullshit while at the same time giving in to his childish temptations, like pulling off a big lie or breaking into a neighbor’s home while the family is away on vacation or egging the house of an uptight neighbor-lady.
He meets and falls for another damaged soul, an abused girl from his neighborhood named Lea (Catherine Faucher) and they strike up a plot to rob from empty houses until they have enough money to escape the neighborhood, ultimately buying tickets to Greece.
Throughout their adventure, Leon realizes girls aren’t yucky and comes to depend on Lea bringing him some kind of balance as his family continues to splinter more and more until it’s little more than sawdust coating the floor.
As I mentioned earlier, this might make the movie seems like a heavy duty pill to swallow, a dark and brooding depression at 24 frames a second. But it really isn’t. Leon’s suicide attempts are not really cries for help, but all out of a desire for him to return to the peace and tranquility he knew in the womb. The movie opens with a narration from him claiming to remember living in the sea before God was a prick and ripped him from it, birthing him to the world.
He wanted a return to that even when both parents lived at home, but it becomes almost essential once his mother moves away.
In some backwards-ass way this somehow makes his different gasp-inducing attempts at suicide light almost optimistic.
Antoine L’Ecuyer is fantastic in the lead role, one of those great child actors… well, maybe that’s a bit too much to say considering that subtitled films are much more forgiving when it comes to acting. Visually, L’Ecuyer shows a great range of emotion and subtlety. Now, I think the line delivery matches, but not being able to speak the language means I can’t really know for sure.
Everybody is great in this movie and writer/director Philippe Falardeau does an excellent job on both sides of the slash. Direction-wise, he shows a lot of confident restraint and is obviously very talented in being able to pull performances out of his actors. As a writer he constructed a fascinating lead character and built a perfectly fractured family immediately around him. The flick is based on a book by Bruno Hebert, so maybe Falardeau didn’t have to do much but transfer the material over, but in terms of cinematic language it works exceedingly well.
I have no idea what the release schedule on this film is like, but I wouldn’t hold my breath that this sees the light of day in US theaters. It’s not that the movie doesn’t deserve it. It totally does and I think it could do very well on an indie run. I just don’t know if any studio has the balls to do it and all the mini-majors seem to be disappearing or being usurped into bigger studios.
There’s a market out there for films like this, but it seems to be harder and harder for them to see a real release. Maybe I’m just spoiled coming of age in the big indie boom of the ‘90s, but it really does seem everything is just becoming more and more homogenized.
But if you get the chance, give this one a view. It’s cute, it’s painful, it’s sharp, it’s different and it’s strange in all the best ways.
Got more stuff on the way! Stay tuned!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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second?
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I'm sure that fuck Charlie Brown thought about hanging from a noose, too.
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That film is fucking awesome. This film sounds lightweight bullshit made for chicks and film reviewers in love
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I bet it was Twinkes. Or an ass-load of Angry Whoppers. The line between EOnline and AICN is getter shorter every day. The ads are just terrible. The Amazon links? Really? Total horseshit movie ads too? Bad enough you whore out and tag your name to shitbag direct-to-video movies with glowing reviews on the cover. Have some respect.
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I mean, what the fuck, right? HUH? RIGHT? That's what people say, right? I mean they say: right. That is the new verbal exclamation point. Right. Right? Who's on first? Fuck you.
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oh no he di'unt!
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The trailer makes it seem more like a dark comedy. Is that a fair assessment?
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...that came up with this one?
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I will bite. Sounds like the early years of the character Harold, from Harold and Maude.
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OH DARLIN! DARLIN!
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