Le Plus bel âge... (1995)
Directed by Didier Haudepin

Film Review

Le Plus bel âge offers a brutal depiction of the vagaries of student life in the clique-ridden waiting room to the Grandes Écoles. The setting, with its obscene initiation ceremonies, surfeit of political pretensions and general moral laxity cleverly emphasises the vulnerability and confusion of young people as they struggle to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood.  The film's abstract narrative style - which often uses bizarre visual cues in place of explanatory dialogue - gives it an unusual, dream-like feel, although it does occasionally weaken the narrative flow.  This is a strikingly atmospheric work - intense, dark and at times extremely disturbing.  Certainly, the world portrayed in this film is not a world you would want to enter willingly.

After the disappointing Paco the Infallible (1979) and Elsa, Elsa (1985), actor-turned director Didier Haudepin wins through with his third directorial offering. Le Plus bel âge is a singular and absorbing work which is all the better for its sublime cast, headed by two auteur titans, Élodie Bouchez (Les Roseaux sauvages (1994)) and Melvil Poupaud (Laurence Anyways (2012)). In the role of Delphine, Bouchez is playing the part in which she excels: a sexually confused young woman from a deprived background who is at the mercy of both external events and her own impulses.   Poupaud is also cast in the kind of role for which he is best known - a mysterious, possibly dangerous character of dubious morals, yet who is inwardly carrying more than his fair share of tragic vulnerability.  With his satanic good looks and aptitude for portraying an ambiguous kind of evil, Poupaud makes his character an irresistible Mephistophelian charmer - a fiend who appears all the more powerful alongside the apparent naivety and fragility of Bouchez's character.  Sophie Aubry and Gaël Morel (soon to establish himself as a sensitive young director with such films as À toute vitesse (1996) and Après lui (2007)) complete the impressive quartet and make Le Plus bel âge a harrowing and totally compelling work which provides a rare glimpse into the darker side of young people trying to discover their identity.

Film Synopsis

A few weeks into a preparatory course for entry to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, Delphine witnesses the suicide of a fellow student, Claude.  Traumatised by the experience - which is made more acute by the fact that Claude spoke to her a short while before she killed herself, Delphine finds herself drawn to unravel the mystery of the tragic death.  She is attracted to Claude's charismatic boyfriend, Axel, in spite of his cruelty and extreme political views.  Axel agrees to have sex with Delphine if she first manages to sleep with Claude's brother, Bertrand, a cadet who hopes to enter the elite military academy, St. Cyr.  Through Bertrand, Delphine finds out more about Claude's life and comes ever closer to the reason for her suicide...