(France, 116
min.)
Dir. André
Techiné, Writ. André Techiné, Céline Sciamma
Starring: Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin
Fila
 |
| Corentin Fila and Kacey Mottet Klein in Being 17, a film by André Techiné Courtesy Pacific Northwest Pictures |
Legendary French director André Techiné (La belle saison) returns to the screen
with Being 17. This invigorating love
story yields a strong May-December romance behind the camera as the 73-year-old
director pairs up with up-and-coming filmmaker Céline Sciamma (Girlhood, My Life as a Courgette). Together, the pair writes a film of fresh
vision with a master’s hand. The leisurely-paced and richly characterised drama
is a sharp, provocative, and revitalising coming-of-age and
coming-out-of-the-closet romance.
Being 17 journeys into the land of young love as high-schooler/aspiring farmhand Thomas (Corentin Fila) finds himself in the company of his classmate Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) after Damien’s mother Marianne (Sandrine Kiberlain) visits the family farm. Marianne makes the long trip from town because Thomas’s adoptive mother Christine (Mama Prassinos) is pregnant with an unexpected (but certainly welcome) surprise. Thomas, upon Marianne’s suggestion, comes to live with them while his mother rests in the hospital.
Thomas’s stay in the family home proves an unexpected (but
certainly welcome) surprise for Damien. As Being
17 shows in the early stage of Christine’s gestation—Techiné and Sciamma
structure the film in three acts to coincide with the trimesters of the
pregnancy—that Thomas and Damien have a tense relationship at school. They
fight for no reason as one agitates the other and receives a kick or a punch in
return. Boys will be boys, for sure, but this kind of relationship doesn’t make
for the best match in a space as intimate as a home. On the other hand, maybe
it does.
In this case, love is a lot like Christine’s unplanned
pregnancy. Sometimes things just happen when the timing’s right. Some shock,
some queasiness, some uncertainty, but depending on the course one takes, it
can grow into something meaningful.
By the second trimester, this pent-up aggression reveals
itself as repressed longing working itself out. As Damien realises the feelings
for Thomas that grow inside his belly, life at home becomes awkward. Techiné
uses ample lingering shots, hesitant glances, cautious pauses, and brief
strokes of bodily contact to convey the restless but palpable attraction
between the two boys. Thomas and Damien, at 17, are approaching love for the
first time. Since neither boy is out nor demonstratively aware of his sexual
orientation when the film begins, Being
17 gives the characters significant territory to explore and complex
emotions to wrestle with like two boys going for brawls in the yard.
Being 17 wrestles
with the challenge of figuring oneself out at this age of self-discovery and
awareness. By letting the boys go blow for blow in numerous physical
encounters, the film uses intense physical contact between Thomas and Damien to
create intimacy as they negotiate the meaning behind the mix of pain and
pleasure they each feel as they scuff and tumble in the fields.
As the film progresses through Christine’s trimesters, the
boys grow and add layers and complexity through the performances. Klein and Fila
give strong turns as the boys each undergo their own growth from boyhood to
adulthood. Techiné lets each actor draw upon his character’s respective strengths
with his physicality—Klein’s smallness and vulnerability to match Damien’s
sensitivity and Fila’s brooding physicality and strength to define Thomas’s
discomfort and self-loathing. They’re very believable and effective with the
youthfulness and vitality of their chemistry.
Kiberlain makes Marianne a dynamic character, too, as the
mother undergoes her own unexpected turn with love. Hers is a romance cruelly
aborted. This interest in the experiences and emotions of a maturing woman is
just as significant as the frankly depicted interracial queer romance of Thomas
and Damien. Pain and grief in one
corner, but compassion and tenderness with the boys in the other, lets Marianne
confront her own sense of self in the world much like the boys growing under
her wing. She might be beyond the edge of 17, but life keeps giving birth to
new experiences.
Being 17 opens in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 18.
