The year of awakening
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The year of awakening |
| Original title | L'Année de l'éveil |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1991 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gérard Corbiau |
| script | Gérard Corbiau Andrée Corbiau Michel Fessler |
| production | Joëlle Bellon |
| camera | François Catonné |
| cut | Denise Vindevogel |
| occupation | |
| |
The Year of Awakening (originally: L'Année de l'éveil ) is a Franco-Belgian film by the director Gérard Corbiau from 1991 based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by the French writer Charles Juliet .
action
The film is set in 1948. 14-year-old François is a student at a military school in Aix-en-Provence and is often teased there by his comrades. He has been avoiding this sport since his friend Bastien, with whom he played rugby, was killed as a soldier in Indochina. To defend himself against the violence of the older soldiers at the military school, he secretly begins to box. When his group leader (Julien) catches him doing it, he trains with him, he who was once a French champion himself.
The group leader develops a friendship with the boy and takes him, who cannot go home as an adoptive child, to his home on the weekends. Julien is married to the Italian Lena and they have one child. However, it soon becomes clear that Julien does not get on very well with her, and he often hits her. François soon falls in love with the adult woman who reciprocates his feelings. "Are you happy?" he asks her. "On Sundays, yes," she replies. A week later, Lena seduces the teenager and sleeps with him. However, this creates ambivalent feelings in him: on the one hand he loves her, on the other hand he feels like a traitor to Julien.
At the same time, François becomes friends with a new classmate, who is called Galène because of a self-made detector receiver. He is interested in music and has a plaster bust of Beethoven in his locker.
François' French teacher, who was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for 15 months, had different experiences with the Germans . This account prompts François to take an oath one night in the barracks yard to fight against all forms of injustice. This attitude has the effect that he no longer works in German lessons out of disgust for Germany. The German teacher, however, teaches him a lesson: only when a soldier has to decide between life and death does it become clear whether you are a person or a pig. That applies to the Germans, to the Vietnamese , but also to the French. This assessment soon came true in the barracks: a group of older soldiers raided the younger students' dormitory at night. In addition, François is brutally attacked after lunch. Thanks to his boxing training, he can defend himself against the much stronger and thus gets his comrades recognized.
François' group leader is replaced by another non-commissioned officer, a sadist who had previously been ill with the youth. Once he crushes his hands with his boots so that he can no longer box. François no longer accepts this torture and provokes him so much that he is locked in a solitary cell. The process of instruction (hair scissors on his knees in front of all comrades) is painful, but it earns him a lot of respect. In addition, on advice from Galène, he begins to write in the cell. "I write," he says, "I am happy."
A few years later, François fought with Galène in Indochina, with the latter falling at his side. Back in France, François meets Lena, who works as a waitress in a restaurant on the coast, and learns that her husband was killed in an accident. Despite these sad circumstances, the joy of having found each other prevails for both of them.
Web links
- The year of awakening in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Remarks
- ↑ Based on the French expression "poste à galène" for a detector receiver.