This thesis film (a long "short" at 40 some minutes) by actress/director Emmanuelle Bercort is startling UNoriginal in concept as far French cinema goes. A bratty 14-year-old girl meets an older man while on vacation at the beach. Later they hook up in his Parisian apartment, and after several false starts, he "makes her a woman". Even given that this was directed by a female and told decidedly from the point of view of the girl still makes this stereotypically French. Gallic feminist director Catherine Breillet has pretty much made this exact film at least three times with "Une Vrai Jeune Fille", "36 Fillete", and "To My Sister (Fat Girl)". At least Bercort can't be considered guilty of holding any double-standards since she also later directed and starred in the feature "Clement" where she herself plays a middle-aged woman who seduces a teenage boy.
The cinematography of this film is interesting. It's shot on highly de-saturated color stock that almost approaches black and white at times. Visually the beach scenes at the beginning of the film are stronger than the bulk of the film that takes place in a cramped Paris apartment. But the most interesting part of the film, both visually and otherwise, is the amazing and beautiful young French actress Isild Le Besco. Isild is the less famous younger sister of director/actress Maiwenn Le Besco, who married Luc Besson as a teenager, and though she's principally a middle-aged director nowadays, still seems to send male film critics into paroxysms of lust, even at press conferences for her films. Well, more people really ought get a load of her SISTER, who has equally exotic, but strangely different, looks (Maiwenn looks like a voluptuous man-eater, Isild like a shy, sensitive girl next door) and an absolutely stunning body that, unlike her older sister, she has not been the least bit shy about showing off every centimeter of in her movies. She was only about 16 or 17 in this (her debut) role, but she is pretty much the Platonic ideal of the pretty, sexually precocious teenage girl. And watching her character get slowly deflowered, even in a tame and arty short with only brief nudity, is really memorable.
Of course, Le Besco's assured ACTING even at this young age is also quite impressive. She doesn't come across so much as an emerging talent as an already formidable one that has seemingly sprung fully-formed from the womb. This was Bercourt's debut film and calling-card as a director, but it is Isild Lebesco who really owns it.
