Customer Reviews

Grande Ecole

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Grande école seems to be one of those films that viewers either love passionately or dismiss as a mess. Robert Salis ('À la recherche du paradis perdu') has not only adapted the play by Jean-Marie Besset for the screen, he is also the thoughtful, intelligent, and challenging director of this little masterwork. Though there is much to please the casual eye (the cast is a collection of truly beautiful people!) with sensual scenes as brave as any yet filmed, the real beauty of Grande école is the multilayered story, a story which explores the dichotomies of class, race, gender, philosophy, economic status, and history and social issues - just the sort of milieu expected from a 'big school' environment.

A spectacular opening sequence reveals a castle-like private college in Paris complete with extended pyrotechnic displays of aerial fireworks, a fine metaphor for the personal explosions that will accompany the students in the school year in this college of the prosperous and one heavily weighted toward capitalistic ideals of perpetuating wealth. Paul (Gregori Baquet) is at the onset an oddity: he is he son of a Marseilles contractor, a man who has created a home life of racism and classism, a father who haughtily sends his son to the elite school to learn marketing and management despite the fact that Paul is more inclined toward the artistic aspects of learning. Paul has a girlfriend Agnès (the stunningly beautiful Alice Taglioni) who is a liberal supporter of human rights and while she attends the neighboring liberal arts college, she cannot understand why Paul can't share a flat with her. Paul prefers to live in the dorm and his roommates are the passive Chouquet (Arthur Jugnot) and the pinnacle of materialism Louis-Arnault (Jocelyn Quivrin), who not only is focused on his studies but also on his college water polo team and his girlfriend Emeline (Elodie Navarre).

Paul and Louis-Arnault bond and though Paul has a strongly vivid sexual relationship with Agnès, he finds himself attracted to Louis-Arnault. In a post-game shower room scene Paul sits on the bench viewing the team playfully soaping each other and his sense of sexual awakening is palpable. Paul steals Louis-Arnoult's boxers, lies on his bed and we are aware that he desires Louis-Arnault. During this opening of the school year the three roommates stroll the campus and encounter an argument among the workers: Mécir (Salim Kechiouche), a young handsome Arab from the working class, is being berated and Paul jumps to his defense. The two make eye contact and a chemistry is created. Though neither of the two considers himself homosexual (and there is a beautiful scene that describes that desire is desire whether hetero or homo sexual) but gradually they drift into an erotic world of sexual discovery (in some of the most artistically sensual filming ever created!).

Agnès senses Paul's sexual changes and convinced that his longings are for Louis-Arnault, she poses a wager on which one will have the desirable Louis-Arnault first. Changes and conflicts occur right and left (mise-en-scenes lifted directly from the play) and the bonding of each of the characters is dramatically altered - Paul, Agnès, Louis-Arnault, Emeline, and especially Mécir, who is the only character in the film who seems in touch with his inner person. It is about the social and sexual and class games people play and how these irrational subdivisions of our culture can lead to sad ends.

The cast is not only physically beautiful (and there is sufficient full frontal nudity to gain access to the complete actors!) but they respond to Robert Salis' direction with fine ensemble acting. The interweaving of dream sequences and illusions that accompany the utterly grounded factual storyline enhance the film immeasurably. Emmanuel Soyer is responsible for the gorgeous cinematography and Éric Neveux for the original musical score, a score beautifully complemented by excerpts of the music of Bach, Brahms, Bizet, Donizetti, Puccini and Shostakovich.

As an important and fascinating addition to the CD Director Salis presents an excellent 'making of' segment including deleted scenes (and why they were deleted), running commentary from all of the actors, and a discussion of Foucault's philosophy and the nebulous understanding of 'desire' - a facet of being an alive being. Highly recommended for those who long for challenging films of substance, films that imprint on the psyche for meditation long after the film is finished. Grady Harp, July 05

An amazing film, far better than so many foreign and indie films released in theatres. Intelligent, erotic, surprising, suspenseful and literate, it keeps your attention from the opening shot (you'll see why) and then unfolds in ways that catch you unawares. I can understand most straight to DVD offerings but this one remains a mystery. A squandered opportunity by Wellspring Releasing (that released that pretentious dud "Twenty Nine Palms"). See it on the small screen if you must but see it.

The movie takes a while to get into; actually it's better on the second viewing because you can focus in on the character shifts, story arcs, and other subtle changes. I brought this movie based on other's reviews and I have not regretted it. The special feature section which explains how the movie was made, charcter's development, and some of the rehearsals is great. My only disappointment came with the sex scences. Given the compelxity of the movie and its stories lines I expected them to be more graphic and explicit, they seemed a little "demure".

Grande Ecole is a beautiful, complex movie, that shines in many areas, and falters in few. In a nutshell, this movie is about desire and unrequited love. Sounds like a lot of movies out there, but this one is unique in its flavor and appeal.

The acting is superb for a such a young cast, and they all look the part, like gorgeous, wealthy, french lovers. I wouldn't mind being in their crew if I lived in the movie, that's fo sho! Five out of the six main characters will bare a lot of flesh, as well as two long shower scenes containing a water polo team sudsing up. It's not so much gratuitous nude scenes, but more to reveal the character's design, maturity, and vulnerability within the context of the plot. Believe me, you'll understand when you see it.

The ending had me wanting more. I wanted more character development, more connection between the differing subplots, and let's face it, more nude shots of Louis_arnault's body. :p

But seriously, I must give credit to the director for creating some really touching scenes. For instance, the scenes between the Arab worker and Paul had a genuine feeling about them; I could sense the discomfort of Paul's burgeoning desires to explore the male body, and the true love the Arab had for Paul.

So if you don't like reading subtitles (I tried to read it while stoned, fahgetaboutit!), high-falutin words, or the occasional lengthy philosophical dialogue, then maybe you should skip this one. But for all others, definitely check this dvd out.

This is really two movies for the price of one.

It's a philosophical French film about class and race differences, sexual orientation and whether it really exists, and the ways that people manipulate and deceive one another. It does an OK job of this, though the heady dialogue sounds more profound being spoken in French than it reads in the English subtitles and the characters behave in ways that often defy believability.

It's also a cavalcade of nudity, as the DVD case should tell you, with both sexes coming in for their share of time under the lens. (Men are actually the winners of the full-frontal contest in this film, with multiple shots of the three male leads as well as a locker room shower scene that exposes the entire water polo team.) If you're offended by bare flesh, you will NOT enjoy this movie. If witnessing casual nudity and people unashamed of their bodies appeals to you, however, you may not care about--or notice--this film's overly-ambitious philosophical overtones or sometimes clunky but ultimately intriguing storyline.

Chances are that those drawn to the DVD cover of Grande Ecole will want to see plenty of skin and they will, female and especially male. The gender-bending plot concerns a French burgeois guy at a business school who is torn between three lovers--his human rights activist/literature student girlfriend, his upper-class French male roommate (who's engaged), and the hot, sexy, and sensitive Arab guy whose mother cleans at the school. The four characters start to cheat, tease, seduce and sleep around, and philosophize in a irrealistically pretentious manner. It all leads to a final confrontation scene in which the French characters speak in some extremely pompous and irrealistic manner, even for a French film.

The cast, however, is very good and physically appealing. There's also plenty of eye candy, especially male frontal nudity and gay male scenes, none of which is hardcore. Oddly, the most touching and moving character in Grande Ecole is also the most stereotypical: Mecir, the sexy Arab that seems to pop up in every French gay-male movie in the last decade or so, hopelessly longing for a French man and teaching the French that there's more to life than upper-middle-class values.

Issues of race, class, and ambivalent sexuality permeate this strangely cluttered film by French director Robert Salis. Full of clunky dialogue and self important performances by is lead cast, Grand Ecole, tries to plot the difficult period of sexual awakening somewhere between adolescence and adulthood.

Salis charts this territory fairly successfully and the issues of bourgeoning sexuality are sensitively and thoughtfully handled, but the movie really falls apart when he tries too hard to pack the story with high-minded rhetoric about social justice, and economic inequality. What we get is a coarse and incoherent mix of human rights violations and rather pedestrian observations on class distinction and educational elitism.

The setting is a prestigious private school in Paris, where the students have come to study business and international finance at the impulse their wealthy parents. The scholars are all a fresh-faced, and uniformly Aryan bunch with a penchant for wearing expensive suits and habitually sprouting intellectual opinions; their also extremely attractive, and from the outset it is obvious that there won't be much of an educational nature going on in this school.

Lust and sex is the name of the game, and gender, class, race, jealousy and pre-existing relationships go by the wayside, as it's not long before everyone in the movie is sleeping or either thinking of sleeping with everybody else. With a Machiavellian ease and skill, a young female student plots to sleep with the school swimming jock, while also encouraging her closeted lover to do the same.

At the center of the story is Paul, (Gregori Baquet) a new student who's especially uneasy because he's a country boy and very "sensitive" looking. Dropped into this elite institution he struggles to fit in with his more acceptably bourgeois classmates. Paul soon befriends Mecir a middle-class French-Arab painter (Salim Kechiouche) after he witness the boy being yelled at by his boss after dropping a can of paint. Both men are deeply closeted but there's an obvious attraction. Also, the repercussions of falling in love with someone so far below one's station spell potential disaster for the two young men.

While courting Mecir, Paul tries to suppress his palpable desire for his good-looking, aristocratic roommate Louis-Arnaud. (Jocelyn Quivrin). Eventually his lust gets the better of him and he begins to act out his surreptitious desires by furtively sniffing Louis's pillow and stealing his unwashed boxer shorts. Sensing Paul's turmoil, Agnès Agnes (Alice Taglioni) his girlfriend challenges him to see which of them can sleep with Louis-Arnaud first.

As Paul, Baquet captures perfectly the confusing attractions of a burgeoning gay man. There's a particularly painful scene in the school's locker room, where he breaks out in a tormented sweat at the magnetic horror of seeing lots of naked men soaping themselves in the shower.

But there's just too much going on in this movie. Salis wants us to care about so many different issues - sexuality, social class, racism, human rights, education and the dignity of labor, but it fails to adequately address the most obvious subject in any depth which is the snobbery, pretentiousness, and injustice of the school's elitist policies.

The film works much better, and is even quite revelatory, when it focuses on enigmatic and unapologetic sexuality, both gay and straight. There's lots of full frontal nudity, which is biased a bit toward the men for a change and a very passionate male-on-male make out scene, which is bizarrely filmed in a hall of mirrors. At least the film doesn't lack passion.

Grande Ecole just doesn't work that well when it sacrifices its sexual politics and polemics for its social ones, and the social politics are much less intriguing. Watching the smug, young privileged class paying lip service to inequality and discovering that the world is bigger than themselves is hardly eye opening, even when they're French. Mike Leonard May 05.

Robert Salis' "Grand Ecole", based on his play, is an honest look at college student Paul's (Gregori Baquet) confusion when he finds himself attracted to an Arab laborer (Salim Kechiouche)at school. Set at an elite Parisian business college, the film follows the tangled relationships of Paul's friends as well. It also confronts elitest attitudes towards race and class. While the film becomes complicated examining the various goings on, the script never varies from frankness and honesty. The actors are good and the photography is excellent. I felt the film leaned a little too much towards bisexuality, yet it's depiction of a young man struggling with his sexual identity in a stuffy atmosphere was very well defined. The music score got a little schmaltzy, too, yet it heated up at the appropriate times. There's a good scene when Mecir (Kechiouche) takes Paul to an Arab restaurant featuring live music and Mecir gets up and starts dancing by himself with total abandon to the exotic music. I liked that because it showed the cultural differences between the two. But are we really that different? This was a resonating theme throughout the film. "Grand Ecole" is very different from other films I've seen with similar themes even though it has it's (in my opinion) flaws. I recommend it with caution: it features a lot of full frontal male nudity which, for a French film, is not uncommon. But those uncomfortable with this should take note. However, I felt that this was just another part of "Grand Ecole"s honesty as a film.

It is the opening of the school year at a prominent business college for elite rich kids. "Grande Ecole", based on a play by Jean-Marie Besset, focuses on the lives of six young characters, their dreams, aspirations and desires. Paul (Gregori Baquet), and Agnes (Alice Taglioni), who have dated for some time and have an active sexual relationship, soon discover that desire often takes unexpected turns. Paul, a young man who has lived the straight life expected by society, begins to discover he has hidden desires for other men, namely one of his roommates, "Louis Arnoult" (Jocelyn Quivrin). Louis is strictly a straight man, athlete, and poised toward a life in the corporate world, with no desire to explore his feminine side. Soon after Paul begins realizing his deep attraction to Louis, Agnes also begins to figure it out and confronts Paul, making him a "fair deal". Whichever of the two can successfully seduce Louis first, wins. If she wins, Paul must give up on Louis and his gay desires, to live out his life loving only her. If she wins, she agrees to give up her love for Paul, and set him free. "The rule is to encourage competition" (to coin one of the many great quotes from this film), might be the best way to describe the character of Agnes. She is excited about the whole game she has contrived for the two to play. Paul on the other hand, refuses the bet initially, but wishes to rebel against all the strict norms his parents expect for him, and follow his heart to find the love that has been missing all his life.

In the end, the winner is decided, based on a lie, as neither were successful in their attempt, but what Agnes has somehow missed is that Louis was not the only threat to her relationship with Paul. This is a most powerful film topic, and the film gives an honest and thought provoking look into human complexities and desire. One great quote from this production is: "hetero, homo, that's all over, it's just about you". The quote is spoken by Mecir (Salim Kechiouche), a young Arab man who falls deeply in love with Paul. This is the concept for the whole film, that desire should not be based on gender, but rather on the heart, leaving each of us to explore our desire for love with men, women, or both, as our heart dictates, breaking down the expectations of society, instead of surrendering to the "norm" that has been engrained into each of us. The film also stars Arthur Jugnot as the third roommate, and Elodie Navarre, who plays as "Emmeline", Louis' girlfriend. I would personally have rather seen a more substantial and interesting role for Arthur Jugnot, or at least some steamy nudity with him. He was the only character who seemingly managed not to show any of his "assets" in the film. That being said, there is a LOT of wonderful male full frontal nudity in this film, which adds a great lot of eroticism. The story line is terrific, and powerful. The acting is superb from all six, especially the male roles. The downside without doubt would be the subtitles which make it hard to follow the film as the dialogue moves rather quickly. It would have been better with english dubbed voice-overs as opposed to the english subtitles. I truly loved this movie and all it's daring content. More thought provoking than the actual film, are the extras included on the DVD, such as the "scene deletions" which include a narrative read by Taglioni, that cuts to the bone of what this movie is all about. Unlike any I have seen in other films trying to make the same point, the writers viewpoint is expressed in great depth and feeling, in a manner that would challenge almost anyone's belief on love and gender roles in sexuality. Tastefully done, this is a film that warms the heart, opens the mind to individual desires and breaks away at the inhibitions and stereotypes that society imposes. A very attractive cast, great casting, audio, video, direction and production. If you like movies with a theme of this nature, and a lot of erotic male frontal nudity, I highly recommend "Grande Ecole" for your viewing.

Leave it to the French!

This is a delightful - "almost" romantic comedy which goes dreadfully awry. While the film explores Paul's (and others) sexual curiousity, it is at the behest of his dreadful girlfriend, Agnes, who pushes and places her will and own desires above everyone else's. Alice Taglioni is marvelously, deceptively evil as Agnes. Look deeper into her sense of "freedom" and it becomes obvious - painfully so - how tortured this creature is and the lengths she will go to scratch beneath the surface - and destroy what wasn't wrong.

The attractive young cast has no problem showing off their bodies and the sense of "au natural" for once, feels "natural" indeed.

Along with sexual impropriety, confusion, friendship, obsession betrayal and deception "Grande Ecole" delves into social privilege and tolerance, racial prejudice, the class system and the death penalty. That all of this occurs in a university setting makes the film's title all the more relevant - that life itself is the great school.

Great performances by an outstanding cast with several real stand out performances.

The DVD bonuses are a plus - a look at the making of the film, and some visits to international festivals.