Customer Reviews

Garcon Stupide

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Garcon Stupide (Stupid Boy) is an emotionally-packed punch. The film and it's lead character, Loic, had me hooked from the start. With the exception of a few slower scenes, I thoroughly enjoyed the film from start to finish. A few laughs, intense thought and emotion, and a few tears were generated from this well directed and acted film.

The filming techniques and styles, and the soundtrack selections helped me score this a 5-star film. The direction and unique filming combined with some classical scores and the storyline all fit perfectly together.

The story itself follows the plight of Loic, a young handsome 20-year old who works in a chocolate factory by day, and entertains men of all ages by night for extra cash. In the film, he has a close loving friendship with a girl, Marie. He also develops a relationship of trust with a man he meets on the Internet, Lionel. The 2 never have sexual relations, just conversation about life. Something interesting to note: we never see Lionel. Or do we at the end? You decide.

The story line develops around Loic's desires to be someone - a photographer, a gay man, ...? He seems to have lost direction in life, and is unable to trust/confide in the 2 people who seem to care for him most, Marie and Lionel. When Marie finds a boyfriend, you can clearly see the upset and anger in Loic. He withdraws from Marie, and Lionel, and neither situation has a positive outcome.

In the meantime, he develops an infatuation of sorts with a local soccer player, who is successful, married and with child. Loic sees a life he wants for himself.

Although this is a French film (with English subtitles), we have young people like Loic all over America. And we have adults who take advantage of them - and we have adults, like Lionel in this film, who truly can be a trusted friend. One of my favorite lines spoken by Lionel to Loic is "You can be interested in someone without wanting to [...] them". This statement rings true for so many, both those near the age of 20, and those near the age of 40.

This is overall, an exceptional film - very good acting, great soundtrack, unique camera angles and film styles, wonderful story, and well-directed.

...which is to say that I liked the film very much indeed.

Though obviously from the mixed reviews, it isn't for everyone. (What film is? - I detested Peter Jackson's remake of "King Kong" which everyone assures me is the most wonderful thing since chocolate-smothered croissants...) But for myself, I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending "Garcon Stupide" to serious viewers, especially if they are more interested in enjoying films than they might be in critiquing film-making. I personally found the story itself sufficiently engaging that details regarding "technique" never became a crucially compelling issue.

In my opinion, Pierre Chatagny performed remarkably well in presenting a young man on the brink of adulthood (or barely over the brink) who is at the point of seriously wanting to discover who and what he is and, more importantly, who and what he can become. Lionel Baier, again in my opinion, did an equally remarkable job of directing a film that tries to portray in a brief 94 minutes a complex voyage from pointlessly mechanical self-interest and dependency to self-discoveries that promise a fulfilled and fulfilling life. Between the early scene when Loic consults a Petite Larousse and his final, decisive monologue and the film's last scene, both Pierre and Lionel manage to develop a character who is immensely sympathetic, occasionally frustrating, and completely believable. I believe that by the end of the movie both the film and Loic have satisfied the promise that each seeks to fulfill.

As to certain severely negative comments about the dialogue, I personally found the actual dialogue to be a critical factor in my enjoyment of the film. Any "dialogue problem" so far as I would judge the matter, lies in the subtitles. Unfortunately, as usual in such cases, viewers who don't understand spoken French are at a sad disadvantage. (I'm sure that most individuals who regularly view films in a language other than their own are well aware of this difficulty and will proceed accordingly.)

To sum it up, I think a viewer who is at the point in his or her life where Loic finds himself at the beginning of the film will find "Garcon Stupide" to be ... well ... a stupid film. However, if you find yourself in a position closer to Loic's in the last two scenes, I believe you'll agree that this film is well worth watching and sharing with your friends.

If you're a trusting sort, read the title of this review and stop--don't spend another moment thinking about this film. But if you must know why you should not waste 95 minutes of your life on it, as I did, read on.

Garcon Stupide has delusions of grandeur, as does its main character, a young gay lad who seeks his thrills in anonymous sexual encounters and believes he's a good photographer because he takes pictures with the built-in camera of his cellular phone.

Said lad (Loic, played by first-timer Philippe Chatagny) is pretty enough to warrant the numerous extended closeups of his face that comprise half the film--the picture on the box does not do his enchanting smile justice--but the pablum he speaks is by turns silly, nonsensical, and stupid. The plot, such as it is, takes its cue from the dialogue, and in the end it feels like a series of utterly random events have carried us to an implausible conclusion.

What ought to make the film at least a little bit palatable for a gay audience--the gritty sex in which Loic engages quite freely during the film's first half--is filmed inelegantly and, in one uninspired split-screen scene, juxtaposed with the workings of factory machinery. This is an odd place for the director to make a play at realism in a tale otherwise so unconstrained by it!

If you're looking for a good gay coming-of-age story, try Dorian Blues. You may not get to see the main character naked, but at least you'll respect yourself in the morning.

People should have to take an IQ test before reviewing a movie like this. The title character may be a "stupid boy", but he is smarter than some previous reviewers. He knows he is limited.
The boy must have been brought up by a television set. He has arrived in late adolescence profoundly ignorant, but conscious and ashamed of it. He tries to acquire an identity from the maternal woman with whom he lives, and from the men whom he charges for sex. As he proceeds, he becomes more ambivalent about his gay identity.
The gentle apposition of conflicting emotions, the poignant, not prurient use of nudity, the sweet acting, the loving insights of the filmmakers into the character, establish this film as a penetrating and sympathetic work of art.

Perhaps they should have subtitled Lionel Baier's dull and torpid coming-of-age film Stupid Movie - because that's what it is. Whatever the case, the title Garcon Stupide is pretty accurate. This is a plotless and pointless piece of self-indulgent psuedo-arty trash that purports to put a new spin on growing up gay and confused.

The title character twenty-year-old Loic (Pierre Chatagny) is not only stupid; he's dull and uninteresting, as well as uninterested in the world around him. Loic has left his middle class family to hustle on the streets of Lausanne, picking up older men and going back to their places for hot and sweaty sex - these scenes are indeed graphic and may scare off some viewers.

He sleeps rent-free at the apartment of old friend Marie (Natacha Koutchoumov), who in essence looks after him and sort of mother's him. Sex and the quick relationships of one-night stands are easy for him to understand, the encounters are often random, and don't give Loic much of an opportunity to develop intimacy with anyone, until he meets a man who seems interested in more than just sex.

The man tries to convince Loic that there is more to life than just pursuing anonymous sexual encounters and he seems more interested in exploring Loic's mind than what is inside his pants. Problem is that Loic is rather superficial and has never looked into his soul - this man's desire for a deeper relationship throws him off balance.

Intellectual shrewdness isn't one of Loic's strong suits - after all he works on an assembly line in a chocolate factory - and his attempt to understand concepts such as "impressionism" often leads to embarrassment and anger. The film really starts to go downhill, becoming almost nonsensical when Loic becomes obsessed with, and finally meets a soccer star (Rui Pedro Alves), and then acts selfishly possessive of Marie.

The sex is mostly uninteresting to Loic and to us - in fact, the images of pasty, skinny-looking, semi-tattooed men romping around on top of each other is kind of off-putting, particularly in one early scene where he videos some guy squatting on a big black something...

Director Baier uses split screen techniques to enhance the action and he irritatingly spends most of the movie shooting his actors in close-ups - particularity Chatagny as he reels off yet another boring self-indulgent confessional. On the up side, the film has an absolutely gorgeous musical score with selections from Rachmaninov nicely chosen to accompany the action; it's just a pity that the music doesn't fit that well with the subject matter.

I guess you could conclude that Garcon Stupide is about a young man desperate to connect. Loic is sexually knowing, but he retains an innocence because he's never bothered to think with anything other than his libido. There is certain compelling energy at the beginning of this movie, but the narrative rambles and stumbles and resolutely refuses to build. The sex isn't sexy, it's just repulsive and the finale when it finally comes is just too phony and calculated, and even worse - ludicrous. Mike Leonard May 06.

The GARCON STUPIDE (2004) of the title is Loc, a rather naive young Swiss gay man of 20, living the life of a slacker in a small city. Having left his parents home for greater independence, he works at a mindless job at a chocolate factory and lives with a straight female friend, who acts more like a parent to the young man, looking after him and trying to encourage him to better himself. She is obviously uneasy with his seeming compulsion to seek out numerous sexual partners via the internet, his occasional hustling, his borderline stalking of a local soccer player, and his pie-in-the-sky dream of becoming a famous photographer (based solely on a compliment someone made about photos he had taken with his cell phone.) When something happens to his friend/caretaker, Loc takes her car and heads out for the mountains, in an attempt to make his dreams a reality, only to encounter more problems.

The young writer/director of the film, Lionel Baier, also appears briefly in the film as one of Loc's internet contacts, which - to his puzzlement - actually wants to get to know him and isn't looking for just a sexual romp. Those filmed conversations provide the greatest insight into Loc's character, and put this a cut above most gay "coming of age" films. Unfortunately, Baier also goes off the deep end at times with cinnematic gimmicks, such as split screens with identical scenes with time lapse differences, and a seeming fascination of scenes with flashing lights. The second half of the film is rather disjointed and loses most of the audience along the way. There is full male nudity and sexual situations, with some scenes seeming to go out of their way to shock the audience. Kudos must go to his choice for the role of Loc, Pierre Chatagny, a 22 year old Swiss native who is attractive and shows some promise in this, his first acting role (although, since Pierre is a 22 year old man from Switzerland who actually DOES work in a chocolate factory, one wonders just how much "acting" is really involved!) In French with English subtitles (easy to follow), a unique, beautifully photographed film. Extras on the DVD include an English-language (Baier translates for his star) short filmed following the 2005 showing of the film in Montreal.

I think some reviewers missed the point of this movie.
It is not an easy ride through the carefree nights of a well-built young French guy as he trawls the Internet for dates.
It's a look at an aimless young man, lost in the easy to find sensations available through quick hook-ups, not really knowing what he wants or even how to get there.
His confusion and relief in emotion-free hedonism shows him to be a proxy for the everything-all-the-time reality of young people today.
The sex scenes are presented directly as is the body and, seemingly, the motivation of the lead character. But this directness also shows clearly how disaffected and removed all the characters from what they most crave: intimacy. There is a lot of fear in this movie. You fear for what might happen to the young lead even as you fear what he might frighteningly be capable of.
The fact that his situation seems hopeless but resolves itself in a way that is completely in line with the boundless possibilities of youth makes this film far more interesting than might be supposed based on a superficial viewing.
It's not a great movie. It's a good movie that should give you something to think about. Not for a entertaining Saturday night with the gals, but definitely for a viewer wanting a bit more to chew on.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!! It is beautiful poetic, graceful, and moving. It tales the tale of a young man who comes to know himself. Through meaningless sexual encounters, a deep friendship with a female friend and finally the love and acceptance of a lover, complete with all the twists and turns of life, he finds himself. The movie is very intellegent, and by no means plays to the lowest common denomenator. This film has great cinamatography and many beautiful images. This film is in my top 15, for its story, its beauty, its poetic nature and its intellegance. In short it is a GREAT film for all lovers of entertaining and beautiful foreign films. Watch it and be moved. I was.

Though most reviewers and viewers are putting this film down as a waste of time, this particular viewer sees many redeeming factors here that, given some further time in the editing room and a bit of script doctoring, could have resulted in a moving story.

Young Swiss filmmaker Lionel Baier has both written (with Laurent Guido) and directed with quasi-autobiographical story that explores the coming of age of a lower class young lad who seems destined to settle for being a hustler. Loic (first time actor Pierre Chatagny) works in an assembly line chocolate factory in Bulle, Switzerland and his only 'life' is provided through his internet activity meeting men for sex. His casual sexual encounters (rather graphically shown in the first portion of the film) are his only answer to relating to people until he meets Marie (Natacha Koutchoumov) with whom he rooms and bonds. Marie is bright and encourages Loic, uneducated and uninformed, to look up words he encounters- a simple but well-intended manner in which Loic can improve himself. He meets the older Lionel (played by the director Lionel Baier) who dangles before Loic's eyes the possibilities of finer things in life. Loic spends his idle hours with a digital camera and between his new interest in photography and his pursuing his 'basic' education, he begins to long for a life more significant than his brainless casual sex. He becomes friends with a soccer player and his son, loses his friendship with Marie when Marie finds a real lover, and ultimately Loic yearns to escape the life of the 'stupid boy' of the title and enters a dreamworld fantasy of something better.

Good ideas for a film here, but Baier seems to get sidetracked into artsy camera work, quasi-porno, and surrealistic moving lights and alpine scenery, and the film falters as a result. But there does seem to be some promise of a new filmmaker on the rise, This film may not be tolerated by some for various reasons, but for the adventurous spirits who are unafraid of a bit of male frontal nudity and sexual acting out, here are redeeming aspects to this little film that merit attention. Grady Harp, May 06

If you love French cinema then you will love this film. Garcon Stupide rejects the sweet enhancements endemic to Hollywood, and rather explores the cold, raw brutality of youth struggling to find both purpose and identity. People can indeed be stupid at times, and monumentally so. This film seeks to portray that as it really is.

The main characters are brutally honest in their interactions with each other. One is not quite sure whether there is more hate than love between them, as they seem more determined to hurt each other with their honesty which rips apart any veneer that seeks to hide the truth. Yet they have a undeniable connection which is both sincere and real in its affection, and whilst their honesty is brutal at times its motivation is not.

The impact of one characters suicide ripples throughout the film, exposing the main character to a sea of emotions which he seems incapable of understanding. His decent into a dark world of casual intimacies and self-destruction is made self-evident, as he is forced to address his demons and realise that the innocence of youth must make way for the experience that comes with being responsible.