Un poison violent (2010) - film review

This is the summer when everything changed for Anna.  On her return from boarding school, she discovers that her father has left home.   Devastated by the break-down of her marriage, her mother turns to the young village priest for support, whilst Anna is consoled by her grandfather.  As she prepares for confirmation, Anna meets Pierre, a solitary and free-spirited adolescent.   This summer, Anna was expecting to give herself, body and soul, to God.  Instead, a mere mortal could be the recipient of her devotion...

Coming of age dramas are two-a-penny these days but, once in a while, the genre offers up something special, something that assures us that we have not yet had the last word on matters relating to teenage angst.  For her debut film, 30-year-old Katell Quillevere draws on her own experiences to paint a portrait of adolescent awakening in a rural French setting that is striking in its naturalism, a film that is as brutal as it is tender.  Such is the authenticity and emotional power of this film that it has been compared with the works of such luminaries as Robert Bresson and Maurice Pialat, yet it is also a distinctively feminine piece, offering a woman’s perspective on a girl’s painful transition to womanhood.  The film was well-received at Cannes in 2010 and was awarded the Jean Vigo prize, an auspicious debut for a promising young filmmaker.

The emotional trauma faced by the central character (played by Clara Augarde in a beautifully understated performance) is heightened by the chaos that surrounds her, and also by her Catholic upbringing.  Her parents have separated, her mother is in a state of disarray, and her grandfather, her closest confidant, has his own worries.  Then she discovers boys, or rather one particular boy, and her whole world in turned inside out.  Her dilemma is not only a moral one but a spiritual one - by succumbing to her natural instinct to have sex, does she betray her devotion to God and risk being damned?  Which will prove stronger, desire or faith?

The film’s title (taken from Un poison violent, c’est ça l’amour, a song by Serge Gainsbourg) is aptly chosen.  Love is indeed a poison, a virulent fast-acting poison which extinguishes something in the soul and inflicts a kind of lingering suffering on its victim.  How refreshing that adolescents should be portrayed as real people invested with real emotions, rather than the idiotic clichés that feature in so many films and TV programmes these days.  The delicacy of Katell Quillevere’s mise-en-scène is surpassed only by the maturity and sensitivity she shows in her screenwriting, her aptitude for sketching believable characters who behave just as they should in this intimate and masterfully composed story.

© James Travers 2010

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