Le Souffle (2001) - film review

David, a 15-year old city boy, spends his summer holiday on his uncle’s farm in the Limousin region of France.   He passes the time doing chores, listening to music on his personal headphones and relieving himself in the fields.  His uncle attempts to integrate David into his way of life and invites him to a barbecue, attended by the local farm workers.  In a drunken stupor, David absconds from the drinking binge and meets up with one of the few friends he has made.  In a moment of madness, David shoots his friend in the back...

A promising first full-length film from director Damien Odoul, Le Souffle shows us a portrait of country life which is far removed from the chocolate box idyll which is usually portrayed in French cinema.  From the visceral brutality of animals being slaughtered and dismembered to the aching empty boredom of long summer days, the film assures us that life in the countryside has become as alien and as unsettling to most of us as life on some remote inhospitable planet.  Odoul cleverly increases the sense of alienation and distance between viewer and location by centring the drama about a rebellious teenage youth, played to perfection by the previously unknown Pierre-Louis Bonnetblanc.

Filmed in high contrast black and white, Le Souffle is as alluring as it is disturbing.  The sense of confusion and frustration in the mind of the film’s teenage protagonist is brought out well, through an almost Buñuelesque melange of reality and subconscious fantasy.  The grim earthiness of the setting, reinforced by the excessive vulgarity of the farm workers, contrasts with the storm of idealised imaginings which shatter David’s waking consciousness.  A noble and elusive yearning for a fairytale princess is sullied by a basic animal desire for self gratification – the film shows us what it is like for a teenager to go through hormone hell more vividly and more convincingly than most that dare to tackle the thorny subject of sexual awakening.

A provocative and intriguing film, Le Souffle borrows freely (and perhaps too heavily) from the style of earlier masters of cinema.  The setting and narrative style make it a respectful homage to the films of Robert Bresson, whilst the dark poetry, which often crosses the line into bleak nihilism, is curiously evocative of Jean Cocteau’s literary and cinematic work.  The film does have its faults – the secondary characters are sketched too thinly to be convincing or sympathetic, some of the imagery is a little too hackneyed, and a number of scenes are painfully drawn out.  Whilst it may not be entirely satisfying, Le Souffle is still a thought-provoking and lovingly constructed work of art.

© James Travers 2004

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