L'amour en herbe

A very nice and worth-seeing movie. It 's a "first love" story, but the core is about the conflict between the dreams and illusions of adolescence opposed to the compromises and frustrations of mature age. The original title was "The Profanation" ; and definitely the story is how a pure love between young boy and girl will be "profanated", destroyed by parents whose rules and morality cannot accept (in the France of the 60's) that "too young" fellows might have a love affair and sleep together. The whole film is very sensitive and delicate, opposing the "square" parents of the boy (Michel Galabru is just great) to the girl's mother, a divorced woman whose freedom and open-mind are very badly regarded by the neighborhood. There is also a very fine relationship between the young boy and his elder brother, a press photograph who will betray his dreams and compromise with "real life" in a rather tough way. An excellent surprise, since I don't think that either the actors nor the director became particularly known. The soundtrack by French artist Maxime Le Forestier is worth listening, too.