Mes petites amoureuses (1974)
Directed by Jean Eustache

Film Review

Adopting a cinematographic style which is somewhere between Truffaut, Rohmer and Bresson, Jean Eustache paints a nostalgic, yet somewhat troubling, portrait of childhood and sexual awakening.  The film is intelligently written, beautifully photographed by Nestor Almendros (a favourite of the New Wave directors), with a captivating performance from the young Martin Loeb.

Mes petites amoureuses is a total contrast to Eustache's immediately preceding film, La Maman et la putain (1973), a dialogue-heavy masterwork centred around a love triangle which spends much of its time philosophising about love and spirituality.  Mes petites amoureuses is a much less daunting film which is also concerned with love, albeit less single-mindedly.

Through the experiences of a young boy, this film shows how a life of bucolic innocence is corrupted as a result of both external and internal influences.  Externally, the boy is marked by the new people he meets when he changes town; internally, he is equally influenced by changes that are taking place in his own body as he enters adolescence.   When he returns to his former home in the country at the end of the film, Daniel is shown to have changed in ways that are both subtle and shocking, reminding us of the precious innocence of childhood.

What makes this an unusual film is how the superficially attractive cinematography is combined with a story of intense personal turmoil and unhappiness.   The opening sequence of the film emphasises this, by showing barren images of monuments depicting France's glorious past whilst playing Charles Trenet's sentimentally nostalgic "Douce France".  What we see on screen is pure visual sentimentality, but what we feel is something quite different.  The film stays with its central character, Daniel, throughout, so that the audience ultimately ends up sharing his feelings.  It is an approach which some of the other New Wave directors employed to a greater or lesser extent, but probably not quite so successfully as here.

Through both his writing and his direction, Eustache combines poetry and realism with great flair, clearly drawing on his own experiences.  As in much of Eustache's work, contrasting moods are vividly conveyed, with glimmers of optimism providing intermittent relief from an enduring sense of regret and suppressed melancholia.  If the writer/director is looking back on his own childhood, it can hardly be a pleasurable experience for him.  He might almost be looking for an explanation for his current state of emotional distress.  We can only speculate to what extent Euchache's childhood played in his decision to commit suicide in 1981, but this film contains a few unsettling pointers.

Film Synopsis

12 year old Daniel is living contentedly with his grandmother in a rural French town.  He has many friends, he is doing well at school and he looks set to have a happy and successful future.  Then his mother turns up and takes him back with her to her home - a one room flat - in Narbonne.  His mother works at home as a seamstress and lives with a labourer, José.  Through lack of money, Daniel must abandon his education and work as an apprentice boy in a repair shop.  As he adjusts to his new life, he discovers that he is attracted towards girls of his age...