Secret friendships

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Movie
German title Secret friendships
Original title Les Amitiés particulières
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1964
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Jean Delannoy
script Jean Aurenche
Pierre Bost
production Christine Gouze-Rénal
music Jean Prodromidès
camera Christian Matras
cut Louisette Hautecoeur
occupation

Secret Friendships (Original title: Les Amitiés particulières ) is a French feature film from 1964 based on the novel of the same name by Roger Peyrefitte . Directed by Jean Delannoy , the script was written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost . Peyrefitte's adopted son and later partner Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele played a supporting role .

The film was released in French cinemas on September 4, 1964. The theatrical release in Germany only took place on June 19, 1970.

action

The 17-year-old Georges is switching to a Christian boarding school, where the priests rule with a strict hand. He is critical of the homosexual relationships of some of his classmates of the same age; However, when he meets the 12-year-old low school student Alexandre, he falls in love with him.

But their relationship is discovered by the strict fathers, and Georges is portrayed in the words of one priest as the seducer of the “poor child”, another describes him as a danger to all students at the boarding school. First of all, Georges, a priest who recognized the relationship between the two from the beginning due to his own pederastic inclination, was able to prove a relationship with a high school student. So the priest has to leave school before he can betray them. But when finally nothing more can be hidden, the Fathers persuade Georges to return Alexandre all the love letters he has received from him before the holidays start - otherwise he would be expelled from school. When Alexandre, who refused to give the Fathers the love letters that triggered the relationship, tore the letters he had received back to Georges on the train ride home and threw them out the window, he threw himself off the train and died.

Georges now regrets the forced return of the letters even more, especially since he tried to inform Alexandre in another letter that he had only had the letters returned under duress from the priests, but this last letter does not reach Alexandre in time before his death. Before the funeral, he seeks out the father, who has forced the letters back and now denies that Alexandre's death had anything to do with the forced end of the relationship, although Georges disagrees. He says goodbye to the Father with the words: “My friendship was love. He lives on in me ... "

Georges' and Alexandres' age is, probably due to the problem of the subject deviating from the book (in the book both were only two years apart), only mentioned once in the film, Georges' at the beginning of the film, when he was 17 years old in high school of the boarding school, Alexandre's age (12) at the moment when the relationship between the two is discovered.

Director Delannoy introduces the film adaptation of the novel with the following words:

“This film is set in a long time ago. The story he tells would no longer happen today. There is no longer such strict discipline in schools and educational methods have changed fundamentally. What will of course never change, what will last forever, these are the feelings you feel on the threshold of adulthood [de l'adolescence] . "

Delannoy leaves it open whether this refers to Georges ', Alexandres' or both feelings.

Reviews

"In a carefully discreet style, the excellently played film traces the psychology of the young people, but fails because of the all too clichéd colportage of the plot, so that it is ultimately without convincing social relevance."

- Lexicon of international film

“Subjectivistically opposing, viewed negatively and sometimes even hatefully - but nevertheless, as the heavily burdened experience shows, rightly (unfortunately very late) put up for discussion. Stylistically from a single source, sober and well presented. "

- Protestant film observer

Effects

This film influenced female comic artists of the group of the 24s who thereby became the founders of the Shōnen-Ai and Yaoi manga.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 275/1970.