Touches You

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Abdellatif Kechiche's L'Esquive focuses on the less than glamorous lifestyles of the kids in the Parisian suburban 'banlieue'. Its low-budget, shaky hand-held gives the impression of realism, as does the ghetto-speak delivered by the young mostly non-professional actors, but I doubt that most impoverished, minority race Paris suburban youths consider rehearsing 18th century plays as their preferred outdoor leisure activity.That might give some indication of just how heavy-handed L'Esquive is, a school production of Marivaux's 'Games of Love and Chance' being shoehorned in to draw parallels on how social divisions and prejudice are not just tolerated, but actively enforced by the society and the authorities to the extent that those repressed come to believe that they aren't deserving of anything more. The use of language meanwhile is used to compare and contrast those social divisions and attitudes, showing in the process that essentially, people are pretty much the same regardless. Just in case you don't get it though, a police squad swoops down at the kids at one point to make sure they know their place and don't get any ideas above their station.It's a relevant subject and one of particular social significance at the time the film was made, leading the Césars to shower it with awards for tackling such edgy material. Any good social points the film has to make however are negated by its storytelling and film-making deficiencies. In addition to being heavy-handed, it's tedious in the extreme - a banal, badly-acted story of attraction between profoundly irritating ghetto kids bickering at the tops of their voices for what feels like an interminable two-hours.

"Games of Love and Chance (L'Esquive)" is an involving experiment in giving classic French comedy of errors relevance to today, in a dramatic demonstration of "Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose" -- the more things change, the more they stay the same.Writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche juxtaposes the titular 18th century work by Marivaux with junior high kids in a poor, inner city Arab immigrant neighborhood, for an effect that crosses Larry Clark's "Kids" with "Mad Hot Ballroom." Like any period farce, the real relationships are dizzyingly circular: A loves B who loves C who is in disguise with D. A threatens C, B changes places with D to pursue his suit and use Marivaux like Cyrano, C can't make up her mind, friends of B and C misunderstand everyone, and the course of true love doesn't run smooth. While marred by wincingly heavy-handed intellectualizing on class social criticism by the literature teacher who is directing the kids in the play and a deus ex machina insertion of biased cops, the frank life and death-ness of adolescent romance strongly comes through in comparison to Marivaux's mannered floweriness, even as these kids communicate amongst each other with four letter obscenities, bluntly crude slang (that may not be too well represented in the English subtitles but I'm sure French subtitlers likewise have trouble with the patois in movies such as "Four Brothers"), heart-tugging looks of longing, painfully hurt tears, and, finally in frustration, physical action.It is not clear if "the blonde" as she is referred to in the English subtitles (played by the excellent Sara Forestier, who seems to have been the only member of the cast with some previous experience before the cameras) is also from an immigrant family or Muslim, or if she just picked up use of a couple of Muslim catch phrases in her slang as to whether Kechiche is adding another layer of social commentary. Or she could just be part of the trend in French cinema to fixate on pouty young blonde temptresses, viz. "La Petite Lili," "À Tout de Suite (Right Now)," "Lila Says (Lila dit ça)." This film has a lot of parallels with "Lila Says (Lila dit ça)," not just about sex and social setting, though it dealt with older kids, but also how literature can be an escapist outlet yet also a threat that brings hidden emotions to the fore. The grim mise en scene makes wonderful use of a crowded, high rise neighborhood where the kids hang out chilled because they have little privacy at home, some fathers are in jail, their loving mothers try to keep tabs on them, and cell phones are their expensive lifelines.While the film goes on a bit too long as scenes meander, probably because it isn't clear how much has been scripted and how much the kids are very effectively improvising particulars around a basic story line, their relationships are enthralling, both the romances and the friendships. Each teen actor creates an indelible and different character.270 years since Marivaux and the human heart hasn't changed.

I'm going to keep it short.To be honest I didn't want to see this film, however I had to go so a movie at a film festival for my international cinema class. When I left it was one of those experiences where you want to truly thank a teacher for making you do something. Altogether this was a great movie, yes it was long, however the director captured the real emotions and nuances of teens in love so amazingly you feel like he stole the performances from the young actors. Not to mention this movie gives a great view of the hardships for minorities in the south of France, by not directly addressing them.Check this movie out, no matter what you won't be mad that you saw it.

I think this film deserve theirs Césars for a lot of reasons. The actors are excellent, especially Sara Forestier who's not from suburbs and has learned all words of this 'particular' vocabulary. The screenplay is very well, finally that's a play in a play ("le Jeu De l'Amour Et Du Hasard" written by Marivaux). This film shows almost the reality, is sometimes funny. The french teacher is disgusting, she is exactly what the director wants to fight : a society were there is no hope for an inhabitant of suburbs. As to her, Kremo is an idiot because he will never be Arlequin, he 'll never be in love and he doesn't even know how to play it. The film shows how wrong it is... The low point of the film is the sound, very bad, I think they wanted to be more realistic but that could be better, and realistic. This film is well to see, everyone can learn something.Even for french the language is hard to understand(sometimes we would have wanted subtitles!). I don't think the foreigners (particularly the ones who watch only blockbusters) will enjoy, or/and understand. But this freshly film is worth to be seen with attention.