A little bitch
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A little bitch |
| Original title | La drôlesse |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jacques Doillon |
| script | Jacques Doillon Denis Ferraris |
| production |
Danièle Delorme Yves Robert |
| camera | Philippe Rousselot |
| cut | Laurent Quaglio |
| occupation | |
| |
A Little Babe is a 1979 French drama directed by Jacques Doillon .
action
Madeleine is about to reach puberty. She lives in a small village and has a long way to go to school every day. Her father has left the family and the relationship with the mother is deeply disturbed. She is often beaten, the mother refuses affection. When the children are supposed to write a poem for their mother at school on Mother's Day, Madeleine refuses, because she doesn't like her mother. One day the teenager meets François Madeleine's mother. François is 17 years old, unemployed, has no school leaving certificate and lives in a shabby barn on the farm of his mother and her new husband. François is an outsider and makes a little money selling paper and picking mushrooms. Not particularly intelligent, he tries to ensnare Madeleine's mother, but she chases him away. She tells him that her daughter has pimples and that she is constantly scratching herself. François thinks that he can cure her from it.
The next day he lies in wait for Madeleine on her way to school and gets her to get into his moped trailer. He ties her up, but also makes it clear to her that everything has been discussed with her mother. He also lures them by saying that he owns a television. Back at his parents' yard, he locks her up on the barn floor in his room. He makes a fake video camera that he hangs up in the room so that he can see Madeleine's activities even when he is not there. He starts treating her pimples. Madeleine is initially afraid, but over time develops an affection for François. He makes it clear to her that he is not acting independently, but on behalf of his "clients", who over time turn out to be his parents, who in turn know nothing about Madeleine. François' initial threats to hit Madeleine if she disobeyed prove to be ineffective, as Madeleine is also regularly beaten by her mother and she doesn't mind.
Over time, Madeleine becomes more dominant, especially since François himself doesn't know what to do with her. She gets him to apologize to his mother after an argument with her, dictates the rules under which circumstances she opens the door to the attic room and determines what he should buy for dinner. She begins to trust him and call him father. Nevertheless, over time, she no longer finds her stay with him entertaining and runs away, but returns to him. In order not to be bored anymore, she wants a child from him, but the shocked François makes it clear to her that she is too young for that and that she actually has no idea what she wants. One day the pimples on Madeleine's neck disappeared and François tells her that he will therefore bring them back to her mother. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that François has to pay taxes for his moped and will therefore go to jail for 20 days because he does not have the money. Both split up with deep sadness and Madeleine makes him promise not to tell anyone where she lives. A little later you can see both of them re-enacting the kidnapping scene in front of the police. It is Madeleine who takes his hand. When he lifts her up in the air to put her in the trailer of his moped, she whispers to him that they should both pretend that she is dead.
production
A little bitch was filmed in Normandy in 1978 . Leading actress Madeleine Desdevises, who was eleven years old at the time of shooting, died of leukemia in 1982 at the age of 15 . It remained her only film. The costumes were created by Mic Cheminal , the film construction came from Jean-Denis Robert . Jacques Doillon said he made the film in response to William Wyler's 1965 The Catcher , which he didn't like.
The film premiered on May 23, 1979 at the Cannes International Film Festival . It was seen by 585,571 viewers in French cinemas. The film also opened in German cinemas on June 6, 1980.
criticism
The film service found that the film tells its story "emphatically unspectacular and calm", it was "excellently played and filled with a quiet human humor." The New York Times called A Little Slut a "sweet, eccentric love story". For Cinema , the film was “a wonderfully played mixture of crime drama, love story and parody of the adult world. Conclusion: Completely unspectacular and yet moving ”.
Awards
A little bitch ran in Cannes 1979 in the competition for the Golden Palm . Jacques Doillon won the Prix du jeune cinéma for the film in Cannes. The film received two César nominations in 1980 : Jacques Doillon was nominated for an award in the category of Best Director and for Best Screenplay .
Web links
- A little bitch in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Secrets tournage on allocine.fr
- ↑ See La drôlesse on festival-cannes.fr
- ↑ See allocine.fr
- ↑ A little bitch. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Vincent Canby: La Drolesse (1979): Eccentric Love Story . New York Times, April 10, 1981.
- ↑ See cinema.de