Tendres cousines

Film is still young enough for there to be credible arguments about just what it is.

Its entirely possible for someone to believe it is about what photography is, what the majority of us think photography is.

Here's a photographer, and he believes that. His photographs evoke remembrances of an innocent sexuality, false memories certainly but sweet smelling. There's a deliberate unreality in the photos, with girls in nearly surreal poses with the lens gauzed as if there were a barrier of sorts between our reality and that we see — or is it imagine?

There's all sorts of implied narrative in these still photos. They are so, so very rich in what they imply.

Now to film. I've seem "Laura," which was successful in a minor way because the artist dreaming about the new woman was placed in the story explicitly. Oh and he has vision problems, and he needs to translate his story by shifting senses (to touch) just as we do from photo to movie.

This is his next project. I really don't know what he was thinking. Before he had sexual imaginings, here he simply has sex. Before he focused on a wonderful symmetry: our imaginations of a young girl balanced with her imaginings of an older man. I guess he thought he could work a similar symmetry here with a young boy instead of the older artist. But it fails in an extraordinarily large way.

I think that is because in this case he invested too much in the story, the power of the story to carry the thing, and he drifted too far away from where he has power, the image. I think "Walkabout" successfully does what this attempts. Go there instead.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Most reviews say that this is the weakest point in Hamilton's short movie career. This movie is a bit different from the rest, and considering it the best or the worst depends on what you expect from a movie, and what you expect from Hamilton.

Knowing Hamilton as a photographer, you can be slightly surprised. While Bilitis looks like his books in a movement with all those young girls discovering themselves and relations with each other on the edge of lesbian, with a plot connecting these scenes, Laura concentrates on few characters what enables developing relations among them (male-female, artist-model) but though we see beautiful photos, many of them better than his average, their number is reduced for the sake of the plot. Tendres cousines is different from both, it is only Hamilton's movie that looks more like a film than like a collection of moving photos. Because of that it can be acceptable to wider audience than Hamilton's fans, looking like an erotic comedy (but not German soft-core type - "Schulmädchen report" fans would be very disappointed). You won't laugh a lot, but you can smile (and that's something you don't often get from Hamilton). Unlike all other Hamilton's movies the age of female varies. Unlike other movies main character is a boy. Unlike his usual works this one isn't put out of place and out of time. We have characters that live their life, have their destiny and don't lead us only from one photo to another, from one nude girl to another.

Unfortunately, Hamilton (again) gets lost with a script in his hands. Girls on beaches, under shower, in low-light rooms, in gardens, under tents, in front of mirrors, regardless of the amount of clothes - this is his territory, he can shoot minutes and hours, and whatever he does you'll always feel the artist's eye and hand behind it. But when he has to present us average everyday life he stops being Hamilton and becomes average director who just follows the script. Hamilton is best known for his nudes, but they are just a part of his work. And in Tendres cousines we have a reverse situation: his girls are not in the best shots. Nature, garden, house remind us on Hamilton's work (often neglected part of it), while girls, even when nude, don't have anything special in the way he presents us. Maybe Hamilton was confused having a boy in front of camera, maybe he was thinking about a line that censorship would accept, maybe he was really trying to make something new (and no one dared to tell him he shouldn't), but he neglected what he was mostly praised for.

"Tendres Cousines" has generally been placed into two categories in the past: sex comedy and those kinds of movies which are mainly about artsy cinematography. However, if it belongs in the first category, it is mostly boring, pretentious, dreary, and painfully unfunny (French movies usually fail to distinguish between cute and funny). If it belongs in the latter category, than the cinematography is a grainy mix of shots which resemble traditional paintings and also of downright ugly shots which could probably be attributed to the film´s low production values. However, the movie is notable for a different reason. While it only has about 9 sex scenes, about 4 involve Julien, the film´s 14 year old hero who actually looks 14 if not younger ! These tend to be relatively explicit, chock full of nudity and even hint at incest. Of course, the movie is probably intended to show a case of what can happen during puberty and what can lead adult or almost adult women (the women in the movie, by the way, are gorgeous) to have sex with a boy that young. Or, it could just be an attempt at a teenage "Emmanuelle". Nevertheless, it surprises me that this movie was not banned in the U.S. as child porn - not that it necessarily should be but Americans tend to be extremely sensitive to the problem of teen exploitation . All in all, "Tendres Cousines" is a weird and somewhat twisted little movie. Pedophiles and people who think that French people can do no wrong should love it.

As others have mentioned, all the women that go nude in this film are mostly absolutely gorgeous. The plot very ably shows the hypocrisy of the female libido. When men are around they want to be pursued, but when no "men" are around, they become the pursuers of a 14 year old boy. And the boy becomes a man really fast (we should all be so lucky at this age!). He then gets up the courage to pursue his true love.

The third movie photographer David Hamilton made might have been his best one yet. It is livelier and more interesting than "Bilitis" and "Laura", and also has a more convincing sense of time and place. You can actually believe that the characters and locale in the movie are real, and that they go on existing in between shots, and outside of them.

However, probably nobody watched a David Hamilton movie for the mise-en-scene. His movies were like artful softcore pornography. "Tendres cousines" actually seems to have less nudity than the previous two flicks. "Bilitis" and "Laura" both had lengthy communal shower scenes with young women frolicking naked. I didn't see any of that here, though there is of course still nudity.

What always struck me about this flick - and the only thing I remembered about it from watching it years ago - is that the male lead, a fourteen year old boy, is more strikingly beautiful than any of the women in the movie. At first, he detracts from the beauty of the female lead, because she is nowhere near as striking as he is, and you wonder why he is interested in her. Then later, when you get a better look at her, you realise she is beautiful too.

The plot features the same theme Hamilton used in his previous two movies: that of unrequited love. Poune (what a name) is in love with her cousin Julien, who is in love with his cousin Julia. His sister Claire is engaged to Charles, but he's got his eye on Julia. A maid at the house tries to seduce Julien and take his virginity, but is caught and fired after she strips naked and lies with him and gets his shirt off. He makes up for it later, though, bagging himself a couple of other girls. He doesn't even look like he's in puberty yet.

I enjoyed this flick more than the others. I just felt like it was more professionally done.