Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story

I have nothing against explicit sex in movies when it has a function to make the story stronger and leave a deeper impression. Of course, I like good porn too. But when a movie that is not porn is based on two hours of sex and nudity while there's no relevant story, that is simply a crappy movie. Neither it tells a good story, nor shows good sex. I want my two hours back.

4/10

As a teenager, there are many depictions of teenage sexuality that I find have followed their own successful formula for so long that they fail to depict modern adolescent sexuality accurately. Bang Gang is indeed, as it is billed as, a "modern love story". In particular, the impact of social media on the psyches and voyeuristic attitudes of my generation are perfectly encompassed. Within director Eva Husson's spectacle, there are familiar themes: the need to be wanted, to be set apart from the herd, the loneliness that comes with attaining your fantasies and finding that they are not enough (read: the scene in which Alex, high on vice, stumbles completely naked out to the pool-where teenagers are copulating and filming it all on camera for online distribution-and plunges in, attempting to shut everything out). As a teenager, there was always a certain orgiastic essence to house parties, people sneaking off to bathrooms and guest bedrooms to hook up, spin the bottle and escalating dares, so that the possibilities of such an event happening, as it did in real life, do not seem far-fetched. The imagery and cinematography of the movie is spectacular. The control of light and palette is exquisite, so that a normally vulgar tableau-consider Harmony Korine's "Kids", all grit and no softness-is rendered soft and ambient. There are some shots that could come straight out of a pre-Raphaelite painting. And maybe that's what's so beautiful about this movie; youth isn't some dispensable, ephemeral quantity of life, regardless of its course, youth does guide our lives, and teaches us that to be happy, you have to risk being hurt.

This excellent film is decidedly not a fake, Disney perspective on the teen years.

In an unnamed, small French town, a group of bored, upper-middle-class teenage friends cope with the issues of high-school life, including the hungry search for Love & for Sex.

Director & writer Eva Husson has truly dismissed all pretense, & uncovered the real lives of these high-schoolers. This reviewer believes that the truth-telling is made all the more authentic because it is a woman who wrote & directed the film, not a salivating man!

It is crucial to understand that European children are raised a little differently than American children. That is to say, the European parents instill in their kids the belief that they should be proud of their bodies - confident, calm, & poised when they are nude. This is especially true in France, Spain, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Italy. Regarding France in particular, the phrase "A l'aise dans sa peau" is important. It roughly translates into English as "comfortable in one's skin." It is somewhat difficult to effectively explain "A l'aise dans sa peau" to Americans unless you are talking to American nudists.

Because of these cultural differences, the French high-schoolers are adept at fully undressing in front of one another & spontaneously going skinny-dipping together in a group. So if you don't like nudity, do not watch this movie!

I must praise filmmaker Eva Husson for her insistence upon one aspect of authenticity: All the actors & actresses who play high-school students are actually high-school age, not in their mid-20s; authenticity always proves critically important in a serious film.

At the center of "Bang Gang . . ." is a beautiful blonde girl curiously named "George." She is in love with a boy named Alex, but that's not where this story is headed. No.

One young man relates - after a wet spring - "The sun finally came out, and it began for us." Another young man announces to the group, "My mother will be in Morocco for 9 months". Bingo! Party spot!

But George - even though she is in love Alex - mysteriously follows her strong libido and insists on pushing her sexuality & her friends' sexualities to the very limits. With a house completely available for 9 months a "Bang Gang" is arranged, in other words, an orgy.

Sure enough, when the appointed day arrives, the teenagers gather & have wild sex throughout the house. It's as if a golden beam of sexual ecstasy is shining upon these young adults - the plain reality being that authentic eros is the domain of the young.

An interesting side-note: The movie is peppered throughout with news reports of numerous train derailments and train-wrecks playing in the background, which decisively imbues the movie with a sense that "all is not well" in French society.

And now, it would be remiss of this reviewer if I did not critique "Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story". First, where are the gay male high-schoolers? They are conspicuously non-existent. The viewer sees Lesbians, bisexual girls, & heterosexuals at the orgy, but gay lads are nowhere to be found. Hmmmm. Second, all the girls are Beautiful, & all the boys are either very cute or very handsome. Where are the nerdy teenagers? Where are the pudgy teenagers? Where are the homely teenagers? Where are the handicapped teenagers? Didn't they "make the cut"? By the way, do all French teenagers smoke cigarettes? It certainly seems that way.

Well, over the summer, there isn't just 1 orgy; I counted 5! Were American youths to participate in an orgy, this reviewer would expect the participants to pair up, having monogamous sex again & again, but that is not what happens in France! There is a decided tendency to keep switching sex-partners. Is this just a cultural difference?

With 1 summer & 5 orgies, let's take a quick look at the generation of French youths we're concerned with. Their parents internalized numerous real-life stories about World War II, undoubtedly repeated to them numerous times, and this entrenched a totally different Weltanschauung in their minds than their children. The orgy youth never had to fight in a war, get wounded, killed, or blown up; they never had to sit crestfallen on their beds with their heads in their hands when the German tanks easily skirted The Maginot Line, supposedly the impregnable French defense against invasion; they never had to be demoralized by living under the "French" Vichy government, which was a actually a puppet State truly run by the Nazis; they never got to quietly cheer on The French Resistance, courageously led by Charles de Gaulle; de Gaulle's determined, rag-tag forces bedeviled & plagued the German forces & the Nazis by blowing up bridges the Germans used, severing German supply lines, and murdering key German & Nazi officials; and lastly, they never welcomed American, Canadian, British, & Australian troops as they invaded France & kicked German ass, liberating France from German victimization & oppression!

So what we really have here with the orgy youth is a group of physically Beautiful, self-absorbed, bored, & extremely horny young people, with zero historical memory! With 5 orgies, & a lot of sex-partner switching, what do you suppose the fall-out will be? This reviewer is now silent, as I will not provide the spoilers.

I am not for a second implying that young adults should lock themselves up in monasteries regarding their bodies & their sexuality; I am merely suggesting that there must be a line where sexual liberation becomes "too much" sexual liberation. Perhaps serial monogamy is the humane, sensible solution which still has some grounding in individual Freedom.

"Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story" is an excellent film; but let us remember it deals with a very specific demographic & a very specific time!

Although, Bang Gang forwardly touches on specific true events had by the curiosities, desires and boredom of the modern-teenage life, it well captures the freedom and the euphoric/dejected, consciousness in the quick moving life-span of these events in teen life today. It feels as though instead of experiencing these fast moments (like things often seemed as a teenager), it's like we're on the back-burner of their minds, watching in a cinematic sense and taking in the subtle details. Playfully reckless actions taken, lust, the sudden bursts of excitement, wanting to feel alive, wanting to be wanted and eventually wishing to be left alone VS the common crowd. Feelings that I believe are commonly amplified in teen years. Whether you are now an adult or a teen looking to view this film, afterwards you may think that this movie depicts nothing more than bad decisions and the lewd minds of youth today; or that maybe this display of teen life is but yet another overrated tale of many. But as an adult who appreciates French films and this common preference for the essence of a moment expressed (which most would view as a dull, simplistic happening in a scene), the director did well to display emotion through the characters actions, down to their very gestures, keying into longing; annoyance, lust, love, sadness, joy, coping and the journey onward after a summer's end of fun with little to no responsibility.

This movie made me appreciate my past teen years even more so. Fleeting moments experienced, the friends and strangers met, good and bad, it all plays as a certain structure in our subconscious learning as we grow into our future selves and venture into adulthood, and man does it fly by.

In the movie, Laetitia mention's how everything went by so fast, feeling like a dream. There's this look of heavy thought expressed on her face, perhaps reminiscing..

And then it's on to the next thing.

With even theatrical French films being largely financed by television these days, it's perhaps not surprising so much modern French cinema is devoted to "social problem" films like this. Although this is allegedly based on a true story, I don't know that middle-class teenagers engaging in wild sex orgies is really all that widespread of social problem even in France (although I'm sure a lot of horny male teenagers probably WISH it was a widespread social problem). More likely this was a "man-bites-dog" story that got attention from the French media because it was UNUSUAL, not because it was necessarily typical of what a lot of French teens are up to these days.

Still, if this were an American film, it would undoubtedly be either much more alarmist or much more exploitative (or perhaps both in the case of something like Larry Clark's "Kids"). This film, however, remains fairly non-judgmental and realistic. Its three protagonists--a shy male musician and two girls who get played by the same smooth-talking "player"--are realistic and sympathetic, even if the background given of their problems and their home-life doesn't really account for why they would become juvenile swingers. But I suppose teenagers don't necessarily need any more excuses to be sexually promiscuous than adults do.

It's probably not a coincidence that there are a lot more French films about middle-class teenage or college students who become prostitutes ("Student Services", "Young and Beautiful") or all decide to get pregnant ("17 Filles") or engage in sex orgies like this then there are about teenagers who do their homework, generally listen to their parents, and are focused on getting into a good university. Still, this film is not nearly as exploitative as it COULD be. There is a fair amount of nudity (actually more male than female), but it's not all that shocking since all the actors look at least five years too old to actually BE teenagers. (They're all pretty attractive too in the naturalistic French way). Still, I miss the more old-style French films that are more arty and/or literary and personal and are focused on singular characters as opposed to "real", but frankly also quite boring, people.