Summary
Richard, 16, lives with his mother, a dressmaker, in a dull provincial town. One
of his mother’s clients, Marion, a young single mother, is attracted to Richard and makes
several attempts to seduce him. He, nervous about this first amorous encounter,
at first rejects Marion, but then realises that he might be in love with her...
Review
With this sensitive and brutally unsentimental portrayal of an adolescent’s sexual awakening,
Cédric Kahn makes an impressive directorial debut. In stark contrast to most
coming of age dramas, even serious French ones, Kahn tacitly eschews the more familiar,
rose-tinted stereotypical view of teenage romance and paints something much more believable.
This film use realistic characters in a realistic setting to convey both the trauma and confusion that a first romance can have on a withdrawn teenage boy. Instinctively aware of – and indeed hoping to experience – an idealised view of love, the film’s central character, Richard, discovers not just the pleasure of physical love, but all the psychological torment that accompanies it. He is old enough to perform the act, but not nearly mature enough to comprehend its significance; love is a mystery he simply cannot fathom.
With its unusual, elliptical structure and intimate photography, Bar des rails is a uniquely personal film, probably with a strong auto-biographical element to it. It reveals in its director both a keen observer of the human condition and a daring willingness to portray what he sees with uncompromising, unromanticised sense of truth.
© James Travers 2003
Write a review for this film...
This film use realistic characters in a realistic setting to convey both the trauma and confusion that a first romance can have on a withdrawn teenage boy. Instinctively aware of – and indeed hoping to experience – an idealised view of love, the film’s central character, Richard, discovers not just the pleasure of physical love, but all the psychological torment that accompanies it. He is old enough to perform the act, but not nearly mature enough to comprehend its significance; love is a mystery he simply cannot fathom.
With its unusual, elliptical structure and intimate photography, Bar des rails is a uniquely personal film, probably with a strong auto-biographical element to it. It reveals in its director both a keen observer of the human condition and a daring willingness to portray what he sees with uncompromising, unromanticised sense of truth.
© James Travers 2003
Write a review for this film...
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Useful links
- Best French films of 2011
- Best French films of the 2000s
- Best of the French New Wave
- Best of French film comedy
- The best 100 French films
- The most successful French films
- Great French filmmakers
Related links
- Other French films of the 1990s
- The best French films of the 1990s
- Other French dramas
- The best French dramas
- Biography and films of Cédric Kahn
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Credits
- Director: Cédric Kahn
- Script: Aude Cathelin, Guillaume De Bary, Cédric Kahn, Laetitia Masson
- Photo: Antoine Roch
- Cast: Fabienne Babe (Marion), Marc Vidal (Richard), Brigitte Roüan (Jeanne), Nicolas Ploux (Alexandre), Nathalie Richard (Monique, the waitress), Estelle Larrivaz (Beatrice), François Decaux (Father), Patrick Pérez (Michel), Dan Herzberg (Jean-Luc), Guy Pannequin (Jeanne’s lover), Suzanne Costa (Girl)
- Country: France
- Language: French
- Runtime: 103 min
- Aka: Railway Bar
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Drama


