Grande Ecole
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Movie Reviews of Grande Ecole
Movie Review: you love him he dose not love you
Summary: 5 Stars
see what happens whne he loves you he loves someone else ande you need to find selfMovie Review: "Hetero, homo, that's all over"
Summary: 4 Stars
Issues of race, class, and ambivalent sexuality permeate this strangely cluttered film by French director Robert Salis. Full of clunky dialogue and self important performances by is lead cast, Grand Ecole, tries to plot the difficult period of sexual awakening somewhere between adolescence and adulthood.
Salis charts this territory fairly successfully and the issues of bourgeoning sexuality are sensitively and thoughtfully handled, but the movie really falls apart when he tries too hard to pack the story with high-minded rhetoric about social justice, and economic inequality. What we get is a coarse and incoherent mix of human rights violations and rather pedestrian observations on class distinction and educational elitism.
The setting is a prestigious private school in Paris, where the students have come to study business and international finance at the impulse their wealthy parents. The scholars are all a fresh-faced, and uniformly Aryan bunch with a penchant for wearing expensive suits and habitually sprouting intellectual opinions; their also extremely attractive, and from the outset it is obvious that there won't be much of an educational nature going on in this school.
Lust and sex is the name of the game, and gender, class, race, jealousy and pre-existing relationships go by the wayside, as it's not long before everyone in the movie is sleeping or either thinking of sleeping with everybody else. With a Machiavellian ease and skill, a young female student plots to sleep with the school swimming jock, while also encouraging her closeted lover to do the same.
At the center of the story is Paul, (Gregori Baquet) a new student who's especially uneasy because he's a country boy and very "sensitive" looking. Dropped into this elite institution he struggles to fit in with his more acceptably bourgeois classmates. Paul soon befriends Mecir a middle-class French-Arab painter (Salim Kechiouche) after he witness the boy being yelled at by his boss after dropping a can of paint. Both men are deeply closeted but there's an obvious attraction. Also, the repercussions of falling in love with someone so far below one's station spell potential disaster for the two young men.
While courting Mecir, Paul tries to suppress his palpable desire for his good-looking, aristocratic roommate Louis-Arnaud. (Jocelyn Quivrin). Eventually his lust gets the better of him and he begins to act out his surreptitious desires by furtively sniffing Louis's pillow and stealing his unwashed boxer shorts. Sensing Paul's turmoil, Agnès Agnes (Alice Taglioni) his girlfriend challenges him to see which of them can sleep with Louis-Arnaud first.
As Paul, Baquet captures perfectly the confusing attractions of a burgeoning gay man. There's a particularly painful scene in the school's locker room, where he breaks out in a tormented sweat at the magnetic horror of seeing lots of naked men soaping themselves in the shower.
But there's just too much going on in this movie. Salis wants us to care about so many different issues - sexuality, social class, racism, human rights, education and the dignity of labor, but it fails to adequately address the most obvious subject in any depth which is the snobbery, pretentiousness, and injustice of the school's elitist policies.
The film works much better, and is even quite revelatory, when it focuses on enigmatic and unapologetic sexuality, both gay and straight. There's lots of full frontal nudity, which is biased a bit toward the men for a change and a very passionate male-on-male make out scene, which is bizarrely filmed in a hall of mirrors. At least the film doesn't lack passion.
Grande Ecole just doesn't work that well when it sacrifices its sexual politics and polemics for its social ones, and the social politics are much less intriguing. Watching the smug, young privileged class paying lip service to inequality and discovering that the world is bigger than themselves is hardly eye opening, even when they're French. Mike Leonard May 05.
Movie Review: What Isn't About Sex, Money and Ennui?
Summary: 4 Stars
This film centers around Paul (Gregori Baquet)-son of a classist Marseilles builder, a father who makes his son wear suits when he is still a toddler and insists on sending Paul to an elite business school to learn marketing and management despite the fact that Paul excels in literature. Paul has a girlfriend Agnès- an advocate against the death penalty, and student at the neighboring liberal arts college. Paul stays on campus in the dorm and his roommates are the passive Chouquet (Arthur Jugnot) and the pinnacle of French upper-class society Louis-Arnault (Jocelyn Quivrin), who at the outset, has no problems claiming what he needs for himself (the biggest bedroom) declaring "first come, first served", like a true plundering capitalist.
Paul begins attending Louis-Arnault's water polo matches and is invited to a post-game shower room-where ominously the girls are strictly forbidden from entering. Paul sits on the bench viewing the team playfully soaping each other and becomes aware of his bi-sexuality. Paul steals Louis-Arnoult's boxer shorts and begins engaging in his sexual fantasies on his own. Later, while strolling the campus, Paul and Louis-Arnault, meet a young handsome Arab painter, who is being belittled by his boss with racist comments. Paul comes to the young man's rescue and a tender sexual chemistry is created.
Agnès senses Paul's awakening bi-sexuality and bets Paul which one will have the desirable Louis-Arnault first. Paul uses the young arab man as a means of exploring and satisfying his desire for Louis-Armoult. Louis-Arnoult seems attracted to Paul but ultimately concludes "If I loved you, what could I do about it." In the end, it is the young arab man who is the most grounded and free. You sense he will be the happiest of all the characters in this film. Agnes and Paul have an exciting, tender, and incredibly mature sexual relationship-surely she will help Paul heal. Louis-Arnault and his girlfriend who are both satisfied with fantasy of upper middle class life and don't want to delve into things too deeply, will be full of ennui.
This film is "very" French in that it is full of almost cliched ideas about wealth (the rich aren't happy, experience no brotherhood unless it is in an extremely competitive atmosphere, the poor are free and moral.) The references are subtle-the liberal arts school Agnes is working on a death penalty case for a man who was convicted in Texas without evidence, while Paul and Louis-Arnault learn how to be successful businessmen via lessons from America's corporate takeovers and LBO's of the 1980's (Nabisco)-capitalism as bad and good.
The extras on the DVD are very good and include a discussion of Foucault's philosophy and the understanding of 'desire'.
An excellent, well-made, quality, subtle film that will leave you pondering.
Movie Review: Engrossing
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a fine little film that is full of layered complexity, plausible characters, credible social commentary and talented and attractive characters. Director Robert Salis, while lacing the story through with powerful eroticism, keeps the overall feel very cool. There is more tension than emotion; something not that unusual in French films. The principal characters on offer in the story--Paul (the provincial bourgeois business student), Agnes (the urban activist and Paul's girlfriend), Mecir (the working class French Arab who seduces Paul) and Louis-Arnault (Paul's aristocratic roommate and object of his burgeoning sexual interest)--form a turbulent but fascinating network of relationships.
The film is visually beautiful, largely because the actors are all handsome/beautiful and their physical charms are fully displayed throughout. DON"T READ IF YOU HAVEN"T SEEN THE FILM YET. The conclusion is more true to life than it is satisfying. The viewer's natural desire to see a definitive outcome for Paul is not fulfilled. The character of Mecir, arguably the most sympathetic and meritorious in the story, is not rewarded for his directness and honesty, but at least there is hope that his positive approach to life will carry him through. Louis-Arnault, the most self-aware and most (passive) aggressive player in the story, takes to risks to his preordained life as one of the rich and powerful.
"Grande Ecole" would never have been made in Hollywood, and not just because of the uniquely French context of the elite business school. There are just too many subjects that popular American cinema will not risk taking on--elitism/classism, racism, bisexuality, etc. More's the pity because they are all basic to most societies, including U.S.
Movie Review: Worth seeing but frustrating
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie centers on Paul and his attraction to both his roommate (another man) and Meric (an incredibly HOT young Arab), whom he defends when a supervisor jumps on him for spilling paint. Meric makes his feelings for Paul very well known and they embark on a passionate affair. A game of sorts is begun between Paul and his girlfriend because she senses his attraction to the roommate, not knowing about his affair with Meric, and wants to test how far Paul will go if she's involved as well.
The women, who are extremely beautiful, are quite present throughout (hetero sex is one of the first scenes) but I found the girlfriend of Paul annoying and extraneous; I wished at several instances she would just go away. I understand the concept of being torn between the girlfriend and the male lover but at some point, this storyline just gets played for too long. In some ways, she acts as a narrator for Paul's feelings (you can definitely tell this is a French film because every thought, action, and emotion has to be explained ad nauseam).
I loved the chemistry between Paul and the beautiful Meric though (I found him more enticing then the roommate); the first love scene between the two of them was quite erotic and if the story had focused more on that, I would have really loved this movie. But, as usual with storylines of this nature, Paul is confused. It's an okay movie but, in some ways, I began wishing for a different story...more of a mutual love story between Paul and Meric; we get glimpses of that, which is what makes me wish for more. It's worth seeing but will probably leave you a little frustrated.