MisterWhiplash What appears at first to be the French female answer - in director and in main cast - to the 400 Blows (and to an extent too Small Change, which came out the year before this) - ends up having deeper levels if only because a) there are two sisters here, and the structure of this definitely and umabashedly episodic film is split by the younger one in the first half and then more the older in the second (they're only age different by two years but, one thing this filmmaker knows well and wisely, when you're young those two years matter a great deal), and b) it's more politcal and sociolgically a buzz.If nothing else there are moments the director stops - amid the many, many of lifes little moments - for a side character to have a monologue or reveal something (ie the girl detailing a massacre she witnessed) that keep it humming with drama amid the lightness and comedy. It's a movie with men who seem threatening and welcoming, perversity is around the corner, but innocence is maintaned despite everything. It's a playful, dark, sad, delightful, startling, and full of wisdom. The girl actresses are natural and convincing, even when they have to cry or act besotten or whathaveyou. The drawback overall is it's all too long. But hey, better to have too much than too little.

writers_reign There is of course nothing new about autobiographical Art whether it comes in the form of a play (The Glass Menagerie), a novel (Other Voices, Other Rooms) or a film (Le Grand Chemin) and Diane Kurys has devoted more time than most to her childhood and adolescence and arguably mined it more successfully than most. Diabolo Menthe was the very first of her memoirs and it may be significant that the year it appeared, 1977, was the year she made the last of thirteen films as an actress (so far she has directed twelve films). She followed with Molotov Cocktail which I've yet to see, Coup de foudre, which dealt mainly with her mother, and La Baule-les-Pins, which continued the story of the two sisters, Frederique and Anne. Both Coup de foudre and La Baule-les-Pins were excellent so I tended to expect a lot from Diabolo Menthe and whilst it failed - at least for me - to match the high standards of Coup de foudre and La Baule-les-Pins it remains a remarkable achievement with a fine central performance and first-rate supporting actors. In a perfect world all four titles would be issued in a boxed set with a down side of drawing more attention to the fact that in each case the principles are played by different performers, something that although clear is not so glaring when the films are spaced apart as of course they were. Very well worth a look.

tdean The director's Entre Nous is one of my favorite movies. I had never seen Peppermint Soda, which I understood was equally autobiographical, so rented it. It's quite different in style from Entre Nous - covers far less time, and the "events" in the two sisters' lives are all quite "micro".Yet it's also true that I cannot think of anything that portrays adolescence as it really was (for boys as well as girls) as well as this movie. Kurys has a truly remarkable feel for the extent to which music on the radio was a back-drop, or the way that a long-running dispute with a parent over clothing (in this case, nylons) can punctuate daily life, or the way friendships in school change over time. It's really a brilliant movie - not the most entertaining, but in its way, profound and well worth seeing. You will find yourself liking it more and more and more as the movie develops.

Aldanoli Insight-filled story of one year (1963-64) in the lives of two French sisters, living in Paris with their divorced mother and trying their best to cherish the joy while coping with the pain of growing up. Director Kurys, who dedicated this, her first film, to her own sister "who still hasn't returned my orange sweater," obviously knows whereof she speaks, since the character's ages correspond to her own growing up years. Nevertheless, the actual time period doesn't become clear until late in the movie, and the characters and incidents are certainly universal.As the older sister, Odile Michel is lovely, and does a capable job with her role. The gem in this movie, though, is Eleanore Klarwein, who is captivating as the younger, more sensitive sibling who doesn't yet understand all that is going on around her, but struggles onward to meet each day nonetheless.