Terminale

WARNING - I WILL BE REVEALING SOME PLOT DETAILS!!!

Terminale is a murder mystery, wrapped around anti-semitism and the mistaken belief the Holocaust never happened. Toss in the hormones of students in their final year of school (the terminale year - thank you AB for pointing this out) and you have a seductive movie of cleverness and intrigue. I enjoyed the movie, even though the subject matter tended to be grim at times. The script, performances, and direction were all very good, and I found myself drawn into the movie, which was a refreshing change from the standard Hollywood fare, which tends to hit the viewer over the head with every point, rather than letting the viewer discover the movie in a more subtle fashion. As with many movies from France, the ending does not resolve every issue presented in the movie, but leaves the audience guessing as to what really happened, and this may unsettle some viewers.

WARNING: Some details of the plot are revealed.

What I liked about this movie initially was it's realistic portrayal of French teenagers. At the beginning of the film, you get a good sense of what life must be like at a French high school. And throughout the film, you notice the similarities -- as well as the differences -- between life in France and life in your own country. But the film is ruined by it's main plot . When a teacher seduces one of his students and then dumps her after doing "the act," she becomes very depressed. She shows up for his class a few days later and abruptly jumps out of the window. We learn that she was unstable and had attempted suicide before, but the students justifiably want the teacher fired. Later, when they discover that the harassing teacher is also a neo Nazi, they decide to take the matter into their own hands. "He must die," says one of them, and they proceed to carry out the dirty deed. The police investigate, but ultimately they don't even care enough to find out who pulled the trigger. After all, he was a Nazi. What this film tells us is that any high school teacher who goes so far as to seduce one of his students is so bad that he probably deserves to die. It says that deep down inside anyone like that must be something evil like a Nazi anyway. What could have been an excellent film dealing with an extremely sensitive subject degenerates into a tired ultra feminist tome. Too bad. it could have been much, much more.