Maurice Pialat's Graduate First examines the dead-end futures of a number of young French teenagers living in a small mining town in Northern France. With their studies coming towards an end, the teenagers begin to celebrate, spending their days in a debaucherous mix of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Pialat's Graduate First is a film that feels like an indirect sequel to Naked Childhood, being photographed in the same region of the country, having that same, grim slice-of-life feeling. Graduate First is a film that examines the journey to adulthood, where individuals go down different paths. Some people have exciting dreams about their future, and others get stuck in their own personal nightmarish world of denile, but what Pialat captures best is the simple abrupt change that impacts everyone, with the structure of childhood being stripped away. Pialat's film is relatively quiet, especially compared to other film of this ilk, but Graduate First is full of drama, pot-induced laughs, a group holiday, sex, and even an incredibly uncomfortable sequence that sees an older man creeping on one of the girls, a man who must be at least 25 years her elder. I was particularly drawn to the characters who are already trapped in the sadness of their lives, a woman caught in a loveless marriage, who desperately wishes she could leave and start over. Pialat's film is stark but it perfectly captures the unknown of this stage in life, with characters of nearly all kinds headed down divergent paths. While I wouldn't say Maurice Pialat's Graduate First is one of my favorite films by the filmmaker, this is a film that gives a unique perspective on the journey to adulthood.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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