52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 9. LA TÊTE HAUTE (Director: Emmanuelle Bercot)
Set in Durkerque in Northern France, it tells the story of
Malony who when we first meet him (aged
eight) is dumped in the office of a child protection judge, Florence Blaque
(Catherine Deneuve) after he was kept out of school for two months. Malony is a
quiet child, who dives for the Lego in a play bag. His mother, nursing a baby,
already had Malony’s bag packed when she attended the meeting. She knew what
she wanted out of the meeting.
Smash cut to Malony aged 15 (Rod Paradot) and he’s joyriding
– scare-riding, more like - in a car, spinning over a playing area and frightening
passers-by. Malony possibly has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (though
this is never spelt out). He definitely has an aversion to school and authority
figures. His joyride takes him back to the office of the same judge, where he
stands face down, eyes covered with a baseball cap, transferring his weight
from side-to-side, pent up. When charged with stealing the keys from a female
motorist’s hands, Malony denied that he was violent. You see from his demeanour
that he could explode at any minute.
His mother, Severine (Sara Forestier) seems old enough to be
his sister. She too has another child but is out of work and a recovering drug
addict. As in such cases, there are two representatives of the law fighting
opposite sides of Malony’s case – a former addict who now works in favour of
tearaway teens and a prosecutor who would rather Malony is thrown behind bars.
The film follows Malony as he shuttles from the judge’s
office to the youth rehabilitation centre, where he doesn’t make friends. Malony
struggles to write a letter to apply to a school, not helped by a writing
teacher who corrects his grammar at every word. In a classroom, he meets his
teacher’s daughter, Tess (Diane Rouxel) with whom he later befriends. There is
a sex scene, though the way Malony conducts himself, it is almost rape.
Malony’s difficulty is that his fleeting pleasures are
always at the expense of others. Moreover, he doesn’t respect the adults who
try to help him. In an early scene, we see him attack a youth worker – who
looks like he could be his father – for being useless. There are a lot of
scenes of fights being broken up. Malony’s relationship with Tess does give him
cause for hope. But he misses his mother, who in one scene abnegates her
responsibility because she has painted her nails.
Bercot was influenced by British social realist cinema of
the 1960s and 1970s, though the scenes here seem less improvised than in the
work of Alan Clarke or Ken Loach. There is no ‘original’ soundtrack, just
occasional pieces of classical music, which function as a counterpoint.
Francois Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage is
another point of reference.
As Malony gets older, the stakes get higher - he could go to
prison. When his mother loses custody of Malony’s younger brother, Malony
rescues him from his foster home. He shows his tender, caring side, though the
kidnap has destructive consequences.
La Tête Haute tests
your engagement with a protagonist who, even as he gets a job in a cafe, is
determined to make a mess of it – at least in the cafe owner’s eyes. We see how
the male adults lapse into violent reflexes – though we sympathise with them
for doing so. Malony is the definition of a little shit, one that has ambitions
to be a tattoo artist but can’t draw and could be a driver but cannot get a
licence until he is eighteen.
Bercot draws out a raw and uncompromising performance from
Paradot, who is in almost every scene. An eighteen-year-old who chanced upon a
casting call, he was pushed by his director to explode on screen when it came
to some of his more emotional scenes.
Why would a woman make this film? It is often the mothers
who are left alone to deal with wayward children. She certainly has compassion
for her subject and tests ours. She is right to do so. You can’t sugar coat the
difficulties in raising children, especially ones who lapse into violence – at
one point Malony lashes out at a pregnant woman. Bercot stays admirably true to
the hopelessness adults and teenagers feel in this situation, though offers a
glimpse of sunrise.
Reviewed at the 23rd
Fete du Cinema (UK Festival of French Films), Cine Lumiere, South Kensington,
Wednesday 11 November 2015
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