Les Corps ouverts (1998) - film review

Bored with his life and preoccupied with his ill father, Rémi, an 18-year old student, decides to audition for a part in a film.  The director, Marc, takes a shine to him and wastes no time luring him into bed.  This experience unsettles Rémi and he begins to have various sexual adventures with boys and girls of his own age...

Two years before making his acclaimed gay-themed drama Presque rien (2000), Sébastien Lifshitz made this equally compelling coming-of-age short film.  The way in which the film is shot and edited very cleverly captures the confusion in the mind of its protagonist as he makes the uncomfortable transition from childhood to adulthood.   Like Presque rien, it’s a very intense, brooding film, with a striking sense of realism.  Actor Malik Zidi makes his first screen appearance (in a minor role), a few years before director François Ozon made him famous with his dark sex comedy Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000).

© James Travers 2007

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