The 1996 "À toute vitesse," (at full speed) was the first feature film directed by Gaël Morel, who had played the student (François Forestier) infatuated with the hunky Serge played by Stéphane Rideau in André Téchiné's 1994 international hit "Les rouseaux sauvages" (Wild Reeds). Rideau played the lead in a short (tens minutes in duration) that Morel directed, "La vie à rebourse" (life in reverse), which is included on the DVD of "Full Speed."

Rideau trains as a boxer in both films, and has the most screen time in both. In "Full Speed" he is joined by Élodie Bouchez, who is every bit as sympathetic and tolerant in "Full Speed" as she was in "Wild Reeds."

Like "Wild Reeds," and Morel's more recent "Le clan" (Three Dancing Slaves),"Full Speed" tells stories of four characters, with one failed gay romance, and is set in the south of France.

I guess one would have to consider Quentin (Pascal Cervo) the central character in that he is the one with the first connections to each of the other three. He is a writer who has been discovered (by Gallimard, the most prestigious French publishing house) at age 19, anointed a voice of disaffected youth who is going to have his own radio show and move to Paris to write his second novel.

Julie (Bouchez) has been his girlfriend. She is attracted to Quentin's best friend, biker-boy and would-be rap-DJ Jimmy (Rideau), and takes Quentin's move as an opportunity to break up with him.

Jimmy does not want to betray his friend (whose father seems to have taken him in, part of why they are "like brothers"), but once Julie has broken with Quentin, he is eager to go at it (rolling in the mud with her—I hope that that was not intended as symbolic!).

The odd man out (even if four is an even number) is the gay Arab character, Samir (Meziane Bardadi). Marc, the love of Samir's life was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in the movie's (disorienting) first scene. In need of material, Quentin leads Samir on so that he can elicit Samir's life story. Samir is smitten with Quentin and none too wise about the cold-blooded extraction and expropriation of others that writers often practice.

My primary problem with the film is that Justin is such a rude, nasty, and narcissistic cad that I find it puzzling that the other three characters care about him (and, therefore, feel hurt by him). For a 19-year-old with a provincial working-class background, he is astonishingly pompous. Not to mention manipulative and insincere (qualities that are not exclusive to upper-class metropolitans). Justin's treatment of Samir is outright vicious as well as exploiting somewhat patently psychologically wounded and bleeding. He also fails Jimmy. (And I wonder how good a writer Quentin can be, writing of the character based on Jimmy that he was "a hyphen between heaven and earth," a metaphor that also suggests to me that Quentin has some unacknowledged and unresolved erotic feelings for Jimmy.)

Julie cares about Justin, but loves Jimmy, and is the least damaged by association with Quentin.

While Quentin is sucking the life story from Samir, Julie and Jimmy assume that the two are friends and befriend Samir. They are there for Samir after Quentin leaves. Julie is aware Samir loves Quentin. I'm not sure that Jimmy does, but Jimmy is concerned for Samir's safety.

I don't want to "spoil" the plot by indicating the tragedy and vengeance that follow. There is a melodramatic death and a numb reprisal.

I have failed to mention Samir's Arab friend (or at least acquaintance) Jamel, played by my current main heart-throb in French films, Salim Kechiouche (the serious and ardent lover in Morel's "Three Dancing Slaves" and in "Grande école"). Jamel is also used by Quentin (to show Quentin's concern about racist violence) early on and hopes that Samir will show his friend Quentin some of Jamel's poems. Unfortunately for Jamel's prospects, Quentin is done expropriating Samir's story (Quentin even tells Samir that it is no longer Samir's story, but has been copyrights in Quentin's name!).

The rhythm of the film is alien. Although it proceeds chronologically, there are scenes that do not seem to me to advance the plot. The back stories—other than Samir having his lover shot and dying in his arms—have to be imagined by the viewer. Only one parent is shown (Quentin's father in one scene). I have no idea how any of the youths make a living other than Quentin (with an advance from Gallimard).

Jimmy is romanticized in the tradition of James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause," Marlon Brando in "The Wild One." Peter Fonda in "Easy Rider"? tradition. I feel sorry for Samir and want to slap Quentin down. Although she may have a drug problem or be heading one, I find Julie the most together (less destructive of self or others?) character. Élodie Bouchez also made her character in "Wild Reeds" the most sympathetic one. Quentin's breakthrough autobiographical novel described her (I think quoting her) as wanting "to exhaust love with speed, live fast to have no regrets" (the substance "speed," not just a rate).

"Wild Reeds," "Full Speed," and "Three Dancing Slaves" are all set in southern France (beautifully photographed in "Full Speed by Jeanne Lapoirie, who also shot "8 Women" and "Under the Sand" for François Ozon; "Wild Reeds" and "Le voleurs" for André Téchiné), all involve young people grappling with love (heterosexual and homosexual), and have the historical relationship of colonizer (France) and colonized (Algeria) prominent. The war against secession (the official French view; the Algerian one was a war for independence) was going on in "Wild Reeds." The later two Morel films (and "Grande école") have Arabs of Algerian ancestry born in France in love with young Frenchmen. The course of love is not a smooth one for any of the characters in any of these films. They are also akin in that the viewer has to work harder to put the stories (and back stories) of the characters together than viewers of American movies are accustomed to doing (having to do—even in flashback-heavy movies). And judgments of the characters is also left open to an extent that is unusual even for independent American films. ("Full speed" does not need to tell me by musical cues or other means that Justin is a monster of egotism, and all these films take to heart the injunction to show not tell.

The structure of Morel's "Three Dancing Slaves" is clearer—chapters for each of the three brothers. In it, Rideau plays the oldest—and his job is the primary focus of his chapter), Nicolas Cazalé takes over the rebel without a cause character, and the charismatic Salim Kechiouche plays the Arab who has a sexual relation with the third brother, but still gets to pine for him. Alas, it also suffers from having a central figure whose narcissism and other character flaws make it difficult for me to understand why the others care about him.

The DVD includes the relatively straightforward short that Morel directed with Rideau playing a failed brother's keeper/protector. There's also a theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.

The movie has no full-frontal nudity. It has flashes of violence and an extended sex scene showing Rideau's rear as he pumps Bouchez.

Before writing about it, I was going to rate "Full Speed" with 3 stars, but have written myself into a 4 star rating. (I wish we had recourse to 3.5!) Although it has its frustrations and gaucheries, Bouchez and Rideau and Bardadi are excellent, and looks at the French countryside are always welcome—particularly in a(nother) contribution to Ifif1938's French find writeoff.

"Wild Reeds" is better than either of the films directed by Morel that I've seen, and I can recommend it without any qualms (though it also leaves some work for the viewer to do... but who can read me and be allergic to that?). And Grande école, too, before "Full Speed" and (then) "Three Dancing Slaves."

©2006, Stephen O. Murray




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age