Action vérité

Action verite (Truth or Dare), available on The Collected Shorts of Francois Ozon dvd, is another cleverly composed short film with a surprise ending (like Le Trou Madame). If you're a fan of Ozon, you owe it to yourself to get your hands on this dvd. You will not be disappointed.

This very short film shows us four teenagers, two boys and two girls, who sit down and play a game of truth or dare? It seems at first like harmless trivial fun, with the four youngsters teasing each other; then the final dare leaves them all speechless.

Francois Ozon has accumulated quite a number of short films over the years as we have watched him grow into an important film-maker. One of the great features of his work is the originality of his themes. This very short film is a mere incident in the lives of four teenagers daring to be different as they approach the boundaries of their sexual explorations. I liked the choice of characters - fresh-faced youth with a suggestion of cheekiness and naughtiness in their dancing eyes. There is a temptation to outdo each other in their game of "dares". Each "dare" probes deeper and becomes increasingly embarrassing to the participants until the result of the final "dare". Their laughter turns to shocked silence. I felt quite sick...but then Francois Ozon sets out to shock and in this respect it must be said he is once again successful.

Not very surprising if you do not ignore the filmography of Francois Ozon, it is a very short film about four early teenagers- two girls, two boys- and their version, of truth or dare , very...sexualized, not surprising for their age, in which each of them tries to demonstrate her- his gut with more and more provocative demands.

The freshnes of dialogue, the well crafted atmospher and the end determining the end of childhood for each of them.

Loving the work of Francois Ozon, I can be only profound subjective but this admirable short film, like each of his films, has the virtue of seed, growing up a time after the final credits in the mind of viewer as fair, honest, in part for this pretty shocking exploration of ordinary facts from near reality.