Friday, June 22, 2012

Grand école

Robet Salis - 2004 - France 

Frequently beautiful and sensuous but embarrassingly pretentious French melodrama about economic and sexual issues among affluent students at a posh university.  It seems Paul (Gregori Baquet) isn’t feeling fulfilled with his pretty, activist girlfrield, fashion-conscious friends and conversations about Foucault, and soon his affection turns to his handsome, waterpolo-playing roommate Louis-Arnault.  When Louis-Arnault proves unresponsive, Paul takes up with Mecir (Salim Kechiouche), an Iranian laborer who works on campus as a building painter.  Relevant statements about race and social class and sexual orientation abound without ever becoming very profound or original.  You know you’re in trouble when everything merely builds towards a climax consisting of the main characters all lecturing each other in turn about who’s blind to what and who’s the most naïve. 

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