Cold Water

A film set outside Paris in the early 1970s. Gilles and Christine are of school age. Both are uneasy at home and struggling to stay in school. They are caught in a shop. They have stolen records; Gilles gets away, Christine is taken to the police station. The girl's parents are separated. Her mother is in another country, her father wants to put her in an institution, and a doctor's report is being prepared. Gilles's father tries to reason with his son. The man is not angry but helpless; the tension in the scene comes not from a quarrel but from not being able to reach each other. Christine escapes from the institution. From there the film enters a single night. There is a party in an empty house; a fire has been lit, music is playing, and the young are there. That section is the film's centre and nearly half of it. The camera moves through the crowd, conversations are left half finished, and the songs of the period play throughout. What the narrative is interested in is not rebellion but being stuck: nobody has anywhere to go and the film does not even offer a plan of escape. Morning comes and the two set off. The production was made for a television series. Each director was asked to make a film about their own adolescence and to put a party scene in it; this is one of those instalments. Because of music rights the film could not be shown for years and only later returned to circulation. Virginie Ledoyen, Cyprien Fouquet and László Szabó are in the cast. Olivier Assayas wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes the youth of the 1970s and realist French cinema. Who it is not for: anyone looking for plot; the film is almost entirely atmosphere and the long party section asks for patience.