À Flor Da Pele

I don't comment usually, so my review's probably not going to be too helpful, but I figure the comment list is currently empty, so...

I just saw this at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday (with English subtitles) and can say that this is a very good film with excellent performances from its young leads. Johan (I can't remember how to spell his last name, so I won't try) does an excellent job of portraying the depth and complexity of Mickael and the film rarely (if ever) seems overly dramatic. While some of the smaller roles, such as Mickael's family, seem like they could use a tad more rounding out, the story is ultimately made very emotionally engaging. The nudity is plentiful (for my American background, anyway) but most of these scenes earn their place in the film with their overwhelming effectiveness. I'd like to give it a 7.5, but IMDb won't allow decimals.

Not original. far to be impressive. a correct image of the frustrations of a teenagers and his universe. about love and sport, competition and conflict with parents, love and sexual interest, desires, confusion, angry, joy. a bitter blend of emotions and gestures who are far to be original and who seems be, after the final credits, almost a demonstration of improvisation. because the end is confuse and entire tension goes to nowhere. because the old French recipes of the exploration of emotions as basis of complex characters falls in this case. it remains one of many European films about teenagers. dramatic, seductive in few parts, amusing and nice. and, maybe, only problem remains the lost of direction in the middle of story who impose to reduce at classic clichés a promising theme.

This film deserves a chance to be seen. This teenage coming-of-age story from France tells nicely against a backdrop of martial arts (judo), competition, and sex. But it goes beyond to show some nice subtleties where class, success, and desire play out against one another to really give you a sense of what the main character is going through. I was pulled in. And the story just seemed to work and be very real and personal for me.

The director, who was present at this Toronto International Film Festival screening, mentioned the story started out as a school project -- something that garnered accolades beyond his expectations. It then grew into a judo documentary, before morphing again into a personal coming-of-age story with the director's personal story touches.

The result was excellent and succeeds on many accounts. I'd say it's worth checking out.

Love, friendship, family crisis, judo, ambitions of a young man, desolation, competition and ambiguous end. A French movie about small things of existence , mirror and lesson, without great ambition and little result. Interesting but not memorable, nice but not new,part of a very long series about teenagers, sport or lost relationships.The good part is role of an interesting cinema tradition. All ingredients are at perfect place. The circle of public is large and the end is good occasion to give your solution. Crumbs of nudity or social problems are only special gifts. Bitter solitude of character - seed for memories of love song and new beginning. In fact- nothing special. Only speech. About old small things.

This movie is modern up to the bones: it's themes (solitude, adolescence, couple, discovering of the self), it's directing (cool, distant, objective and full of human truth), acting (the two main characters, but also the non-leading ones), the music (a sort of pop-psycho-rock, very deep and touching), all of this concures to give us a wonderful movie. It shows marvelously the evolution, but also the dissolution, of a young boy towards maturity. The relations between the self and the others, the discovering of the flesh, the torment and the solitude of the soul, all of this builds up towards the end, which is a cry of loneliness. But the life restarts, and we know that life is not a tragedy but eternal repetition: the hero gets back into reality, more human and stronger. This first movie is promising for the future of Antony Cordier. There is however a little critique to be made to the movie. It is too obvious sometimes: it is clear that the director wants to concentrate on the bodies, on the physical aspect of reality. There is a great pleasure in this, and every modern film-maker and film-lover knows it. The danger is not to fall into the extremes. The movie runs this risk, but it holds well overall. I'm already looking forward to seeing it again. The ending is brilliant, and the song on the back is tormenting!