With Halloween just a few weeks away, we recently visited with Terry Austin Bennett and her staff at Cliff’s Variety to find out what’s new for the holiday this year.
Terry and her colleagues are once again, as they are every year, on it and the images captured by photographer Abby Zimberg are evidence of that.
Cliff’s reports: “The holidays are the best time to visit us. Whether it’s Christmas with all the lights and ornaments or the high holy days of Halloween, we really go all out to create a fun and festive shopping experience.”
And indeed they do! “You can count of Cliff’s to have all the costumers, wigs, tiaras and stockings the neighborhood will need for a fun and festive Halloween.” Be sure to go and see for yourself and thank you, Cliff’s, for taking care of us for 80 years and counting. cliffsvariety.com Gay French filmmaker André Téchiné may be best known for his 1994 film Wild Reeds that depicted the coming-of-age of four teenagers (one of them queer) in Southwest France, 1962. His new film Being 17, opening October 28 at the Landmark theatres in San Francisco and Berkeley, is also a teenage coming-of-age film, this time set in the Pyrenees in contemporary times. Like the superb Wild Reeds, Being 17 is a perceptive drama about youth grappling with same-sex desires and learning to be more flexible in their lives.
Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) is a good student who lives with his mother, Marianne (Sandrine Kiberlain), the local doctor. His classmate Thomas (Corentin Fila) lives on a farm in the nearby mountains with his adoptive parents Christine (Mama Prassinos) and Jacques (Jean Fornerod). As the film opens, a rivalry has developed between the boys in school. Thomas trips Damien in class one day. The guys start a fight in gym class during a basketball game. Thomas also pushes Damien into the snow one afternoon. The bullying is a concern to the principal, but what is behind it is initially unclear.
Being 17 eventually forces the boys to confront their dislike for one another. When Marianne pays a house call on Christine one day, she is charmed by Thomas, and instructs the pregnant Christine to go to the hospital for a rest. Marianne invites Thomas to move in with her and Damien to ease his 3-hour round-trip commute to school. Living together, the boys learn to tolerate one another, but they also have fights, as well as suppressed, burgeoning passions.
Téchiné keeps his camera close-up on the boys’ faces throughout the film, scrutinizing them and their emotions as Damien feels anger and lust in equal measure, or Thomas stares back at Damien, practically daring him to blink first. Their tough exteriors mask an insecurity and desire that eventually brings the boys together. The sexual tension between them also provides a mild undercurrent for the various experiences they share, from fighting each other, to an excursion Damien initiates online with a local gay man in an attempt to gain some same-sex experiences.
Being 17 unfolds, unhurriedly, in three parts: the boys’ winter, spring, summer trimesters. The thawing metaphor is an obvious parallel for the boys’ hearts. When Damien confesses to Thomas, “I don’t know if I’m into guys or just you,” it is a powerful, emotional moment. But Téchiné plays it very matter-of-factly, which makes it affecting without being portentous. The filmmaker uses the same light touch when Damien comes out to Marianne, telling her that Thomas hurt him because Damien tried to kiss him.
It takes a while before the two teens do steal some kisses in secret, but when they do, it is satisfying because viewers have come to learn about the boys, appreciating their difference and similarities. The film has a raw, gritty feel to it—given the snowy mountainous setting and scenes of animal husbandry—but Téchiné infuses Being 17 with a romantic sensibility as well. He is especially tender when Damien ogles Thomas as he strips to go skinny-dipping in a cold mountain lake, or during a scene when the two boys are seen lying naked together in bed the morning after sex.
The naturalistic style of the film is also reflected in the performances. Kacey Mottet Klein has a baby-face, and a sensitivity about him, but he projects an intelligence and a toughness that are equally endearing. In contrast, the angel-faced Coratin Fila plays Thomas with a much harder, defensive nature. He resists Damien’s affections in front of his adoptive parents, suggesting he is still not completely comfortable with his sexuality. He is also trying to reconcile his place in his family with Christine’s new baby on the way. Fila makes all of Thomas’ pressures heartbreaking, and his closed-in body language and blank expressions belie deeper troubles that may be why he is quick to fight. As his character transforms, Fila makes Thomas’ change wholly credible.
In support, Sandrine Kiberlain is warm and engaging as Marianne, who undergoes her own dramatic arc in the third act. But it is best not to reveal more about that subplot.
Being 17 certainly has the hallmarks of Téchiné’s best work—a compassion for its characters, a leisurely-paced, elliptical narrative, and insights into the human condition. While this may not be as superb as Wild Reeds, it is certainly worthwhile.
© 2016 Gary M. Kramer
Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.” Follow him on Twitter @garymkramer
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