Die kleinen Pariserinnen

Insight-filled story of one year (1963-64) in the lives of two French sisters, living in Paris with their divorced mother and trying their best to cherish the joy while coping with the pain of growing up. Director Kurys, who dedicated this, her first film, to her own sister "who still hasn't returned my orange sweater," obviously knows whereof she speaks, since the character's ages correspond to her own growing up years. Nevertheless, the actual time period doesn't become clear until late in the movie, and the characters and incidents are certainly universal.

As the older sister, Odile Michel is lovely, and does a capable job with her role. The gem in this movie, though, is Eleanore Klarwein, who is captivating as the younger, more sensitive sibling who doesn't yet understand all that is going on around her, but struggles onward to meet each day nonetheless.

A truly brilliant look into a year in the life of two sisters at an all-girl school in France, 1963.

Kurys does an amazing job of spinning a narrative out of a string of separate occurrences as we follow these characters through a significant time in their life.

One can't help but be reminded of their crucial years growing up and amazed out how seamlessly the director was able to put all of these emotions into one film.

Wonderfully shot through the ingenious eye of cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, this film is a shining gem that leaves an impression.

What appears at first to be the French female answer - in director and in main cast - to the 400 Blows (and to an extent too Small Change, which came out the year before this) - ends up having deeper levels if only because a) there are two sisters here, and the structure of this definitely and umabashedly episodic film is split by the younger one in the first half and then more the older in the second (they're only age different by two years but, one thing this filmmaker knows well and wisely, when you're young those two years matter a great deal), and b) it's more politcal and sociolgically a buzz.

If nothing else there are moments the director stops - amid the many, many of lifes little moments - for a side character to have a monologue or reveal something (ie the girl detailing a massacre she witnessed) that keep it humming with drama amid the lightness and comedy. It's a movie with men who seem threatening and welcoming, perversity is around the corner, but innocence is maintaned despite everything.

It's a playful, dark, sad, delightful, startling, and full of wisdom. The girl actresses are natural and convincing, even when they have to cry or act besotten or whathaveyou. The drawback overall is it's all too long. But hey, better to have too much than too little.

Diane Kurys made her directorial debut with 1977's "Diabolo menthe" ("Peppermint Soda" in English), about a pair of sisters in Paris amid the politically heightened period of 1963-64. This is the first movie of Kurys's that I've seen, so I can't compare to the rest. I also wasn't alive at the time depicted, so I can't judge the authenticity.

What I can say is that the movie establishes a fine depiction of what it's like to come of age, especially in a less-than-welcoming setting (the school comes across more like a prison). I would've liked it more had it depicted the girls getting into the Beatles - wouldn't that have happened in 1963-64? - but aside from that, the movie gives one a feeling of growing up in the era. A well-made coming-of-age movie, just like "The 400 Blows", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Stand By Me". I hope to see the rest of Diane Kurys's movies.

Movie of a generation, "Diabolo menthe" was a success as it was one of the first showing its youth with sincerity. It is now a real testimony of what was to be young in the 60's. School, parents, friends, society, it is interesting to see how things has so much changed - and at the same time, not that much: childs are always child, the dreamed discipline of glorious past times doesn't exist, ...

If the movie is an interesting testimony, I was not thrilled by it as a movie, and, even if the youg actors do not have to blush of their performances, I rate this just as okay.