DVD L’Enfance-nue

5 Star

The Masters of Cinema series of Maurice Pialat’s work starts off appropriately enough with the director’s Jean Vigo Prize-winning debut feature film, an intimate portrayal of a 400 Blows-like troubled child that was co-produced by François Truffaut.

"L’Enfance-nue is a deeply moving film with a compelling cast of amateur performers."

François Fournier is a troubled 10-year-old boy living with foster parents and another young foster child, Josette. Awkwardly timid one minute and devilishly mischievous the next, his foster mother has finally had enough. He constantly steals and breaks things, and even horrifies little Josette by dropping her cat down a stairwell. The director of social services visits and, after careful questioning, agrees to find François a new home. With some money his foster dad gave him, François surprises the mother by giving her a scarf as a goodbye gift. She is clearly touched but still lets him go.

François is taken to a placement centre with many other children, including two who wear labels that say “abandoned child.” After a brief stay in the chaotic centre with its committed staff, François is placed with two grandparents, and their current foster child Raoul. François is lovingly welcomed and cautiously acclimates to his new environment, but at school, he falls in with young hoodlums, and his proclivity for petty thievery and destruction quickly resurfaces.

He bonds with the older Raoul over their desire to connect with their real parents, until Raoul shows François his knife, and François dangerously flings it at him. He even busts out of a locked room, kicking the bottom panel out, and has to be forcibly restrained. François is not an abandoned child, however; he knows his mother won’t take him back, and the grandfather thinks this is at the heart of his bad behaviour. When his wrongdoing finally crosses a line, the grandfather starts to wonder if something insurmountable is wrong with the boy’s mind…

This extraordinarily loving portrait of the world of foster care will have tears welling up in your eyes. The ability of the characters to open their homes to a young child so openly will warm any heart. As the grandmother says, François may act out, but, at his core, he has a good heart. This is the central conflict that will tug at your heartstrings, as the grandparents and the boy yearn to connect, but his deep pain compels him to ruin everything.

There are many scenes of familial warmth, like when the grandfather and grandmother recount directly to the two foster children, amid jokes and smiles, the tale of how they first decided to take them in. The casual and honest manner with which they communicate is so naturalistic that one wonders how Maurice Pialat managed to coax such uniquely styled performances. He trades a dash of amateurishness to achieve a completely relaxed interaction, unhampered by theatrical conceit.

The story is complemented by a deceptively subtle visual style: shot in colour, with a muted pastel palette, and a gently roving camera. The eye behind the camera is pulled into the family drama; Pialat is not a restrained formalist like Ozu. Instead, the performance is everything, and the camera reacts. Being a French art film, there is a long middle section of the film in which few events occur and, instead, it becomes a slow, realistic portrayal of quotidian life. But Pialat does not eschew drama entirely, so events do escalate and reach a climax. But the film is so much richer for having dwelled on pure observation for so long.

The lead character, played by Michel Terrazon, is as compelling as Jean-Pierre Léaud’s Antoine Doinel character from The 400 Blows.

The lead character, played by Michel Terrazon, is as compelling as Jean-Pierre Léaud’s Antoine Doinel character from The 400 Blows, but François Fournier is quieter, brooding, and ill-at-ease with verbal confrontation. Terrazon’s performance captures a hesitancy and acute shyness we often seen in many children his age. There is also an excellent performance by Marie Marc as Nana, the predominantly bedridden great-grandmother who François spends a lot of time with. She opens her heart with incredible trust, just like the grandfather and the grandmother. The family has no hesitation in treating the children exactly as their own, which is the driving force, making the viewer yearn for a turnaround from François. Unlike François’s first foster family at the beginning of the film, this older couple really knows what they’re doing, having raised plenty of their own children first.

The film makes for an interesting comparison with The 400 Blows, and François Truffaut is even one of the producers. The film’s subject matter is so similar that one may wonder if there is enough material for two worthwhile films. But, from the outset, L’Enfance-nue distinguishes itself from its predecessor: It is shot in a soft naturalistic colour palette, there are less plot mechanisms, and it lingers on scenes of simple domestic life for much longer. Truffaut was telling an autobiographical tale, and Pialat is an explorer, trying to understand and communicate what he can learn about the world of foster care – and he is a deeply caring explorer. He was also a much older director, making his feature debut here at the age of 44. Another key difference is the complete absence of a score, making for an even starker portrayal than some works of the neo-realists.

It additionally bears some comparison to the works of Mike Leigh, whose debut this predates by four years. They both deal in lower-class family settings, but Pialat is less dramatic. Leigh uses actors and improvisation to develop drama and conflict, but Pialat utilizes non-professionals and seeks a natural representation of life, even daring to allow moments where nothing happens. One feels Pialat is thumbing his nose at documentaries, saying his camera can go deeper into the subject and find out more, through his unique brand of constructed drama.

L’Enfance-nue is a deeply moving film with a compelling cast of amateur performers, confidently guided by Maurice Pialat. He achieves an understated portrayal of foster care life that has the deep ring of truth that only great art can achieve. Pialat has a lovingly humanist artistic vision, and this series of Masters of Cinema releases showcasing his work invites a well-deserved reconsideration of this great director. Keep your hankies on hand!