Douches Froides

Halfway through my 16 movies at this year's festival and it's about time I got off my ass and put some words down on those that I've seen so far. Seeing 8 films in little over 48 hours makes it difficult to recall with great clarity the first few screenings but I'll give it my utmost.

My first day at the festival encompassed 3 films with copious nudity both male and female with varying degrees of success at creating an interesting story around the naughty bits as Monty Python might say.

Given the wobbly bits on display needless to say my first film was a French effort, god bless them, with this particular film focusing on a trio of high school age teens doing what high schoolers everywhere do best: attempting figure out what the fuck am I doing here. Can't say I felt particularly despondent at their plight given the uniformly beautiful faces and physiques shared by the two young male and one female lead. Their shared shower experience in the high school gym also didn't evoke too many knowing nods. And has anyone else noticed how easy it is to run around naked after hours in the curves and crevices of the local high school?

Essentially this film's focus is the young judoka black belt Mickael who after pulling a prank in the shower knocks one of his slighter teammates out of the upcoming "European championship" decides that the noble thing to do would be lose 7 kilos to drop down a weight class and take his forsaken teammates place. As this backdrop to the film proceeds apace Mickael does his best to deal with his working class family's day to day existence and the arrival on the scene of a decidedly more upwardly mobile teammate who becomes both a friend and a rival for his girlfriend's affections.

The problem for me with most feature films that have the sporting life as a central focus is that there seem to be only two resolutions. a) the central character is a hero with all the glory that implies (think most American films of this ilk) or b) catastrophe at the most crucial moment (guess which category this one falls into). Having participated in organized sport for most of my educational life the truth is much more mundane and I suppose that's why we have no stories of characters or teams finishing in 5th place. Where's the drama in that? Unfortunately then with this type of film it's telegraphed fairly early which side of the dramatic fence our story will fall.

The best moments in this film for me were those that focused on Mickael's family. His dad is a heavy drinking taxi driver and his mum a night shift cleaning lady in her son's school. Both characters are incredibly real, as any in a Mike Leigh film, and have a melancholy sense of humour that strikes home most fully near the end of the film when the French hydro "auditor" informs them that they have come in under their annual kwh quota of 6000 by registering 5999 and the family promptly goes apeshit revelling in their new found freedom to abuse the state's energy supply. Anyone living this past summer in Dalton McGuinty's Ontario cannot help but join in their glee.