Don't Deliver Us from Evil

Anne and Lore share a room at a provincial boarding school; both are thirteen and have set themselves a rule: they will hold nothing that passes through them sacred, and will do the opposite. A game begins; small thefts, cruelty to animals, disrespect toward the church. The adults at the school take it for childish mischief. The two girls egg each other on and the game goes a little further each time. When the summer holidays come they do not stop; they meet a farmhand in the countryside and the matter reaches a point of no return. Joel Seria wrote and directed; it is his first film. Jeanne Goupil plays Anne and Catherine Wagener plays Lore. It is a French production. The film is loosely inspired by the Parker Hulme murder that took place in New Zealand in 1954; the same case was the subject of another film too. When it first opened in France the censors judged it perverse and sadistic and stopped it; it reached cinemas a year later amid a persistent scandal, and it was shown in Britain with the highest age restriction. The matter it treats is boredom turning into violence; both girls start out of tedium and past a certain point cannot turn back. The film identifies religious teaching with hypocrisy and aims directly at the school. The narrative also feeds the bond between the two girls with a romantic tension. The camera does not judge them and gives the events from a cold distance. The ending closes on a confession. Its limit is content; the violence and sexuality are explicit, the subject uncomfortable, and despite its young characters this is an adult film. Who it is for: viewers who like forbidden French cinema and unsettling coming of age stories. Who it is not for: it is uncomfortable, harsh, and the ending dark.