L'ENFANCE NUE: THE CRITERION COLLECTION - DVD review

After being tossed into his bedroom while throwing a temper tantrum, 10 year-old François (Michel Terrazon) kicks out the bottom panel of the bedroom door and tries to escape into the hallway. When his foster parents corral him and ask him why he did it, his answer is entirely pragmatic: "You shouldn't have locked me in." Like, duh!

Maurice Pialat's debut film "L'enfance nue" ("Naked Childhood," 1968) is entirely pragmatic as well. Pialat omits transitions and traditional time markers, skipping from the core action of one scene to the heart of the next. No frills, just facts as the film hurtles along with breakneck efficiency.

This concise style packs information densely into each shot, but can also produce a slightly disorienting effect for a viewer frustrated by a "proper" lack of perspective in the narrative. It is certainly a narrative film. Put simply: After getting the boot from his previous foster family, François struggles to adjust to life in a new foster home. But the story doesn't trace a typical trajectory from a beginning that progresses piecemeal to an ending. Rather it begins in media res and stubbornly refuses to budge from there. Mirroring the attenuated awareness of its child protagonist, each scene exists as a discrete unit, designed to complete itself rather than to serve as a stepping stone to the next. The film, again like François, exists Zen-like in the moment as if unaware of anything to follow.

This disconcerting sense of immediacy is the key to Pialat's remarkable debut feature. Relying heavily on medium shots and flat spatial arrangements, the look of the film is somewhat detached but its relentless focus on the present allows to ride alongside the troubled François as he vacillates constantly from good son to bad seed and back without the slightest warning of each impending mood swing. In one moment, he attends sweetly to his bed-ridden grandmother. In the next, he smashes a watch that he has just stolen. He torments a cat, and then buys a going-away present for the foster mother who has just returned him to the state. Why? There is no reason. There only is.

Today, François would be labeled behaviorally challenged and prescribed a series of expensive placebos to "correct" (as Delbert Grady would say) his behavior. In 1968, he is described as "not normal" and gets a dishcloth slapped in his face to calm him down. Pialat doesn't speculate as to what makes François "not normal." That's a mug's game. Instead of the Freudian palaver, he chooses to photograph concrete behavior portrayed with minimal inflection by a mostly non-professional cast.

The most remarkable of these non-professional actors is the older couple Mr. and Mrs. Thierry (played by real-life couple Rene Thierry and Marie-Louise Thierry) who take François in after he is booted by his former foster parents who tired of dealing with his mercurial outbursts. In their sixties, they are still madly, deeply in love. Mrs. Thierry still sits in her husband's lap when they talk. They are saintly figures who look like they just fell off a charm bracelet, but they too can suddenly turn into ogres, at least in the mind of a ten year old who has yet to grasp the concept of actions and consequences. Terrazon also delivers a heck of a performance for a child actor. maintaining an even keel when playing "good" François or "bad" François, all without a hint of precociousness.

Pialat's no-nonsense approach eschews pathos but still packs an emotional wallop at times. Simply watching as François repeatedly sabotages every chance he has for stability is powerful enough. Underscoring the action (indeed, the film has no non-diegetic score) or rationalizing his behavior in psychological terms would only dilute the power of direct observation. We watch, we react, and the dual senses of looming tragedy and fledgling hope grow with each moment. The deceptively low-key final scene (not an ending, just the last shot) delivers a haymaker that leaves us reeling.

"L'enfance nue" was an instant critical hit for Pialat (though a box office failure), announcing Pialat a "new" (he was 43) talent who would go on to become one of the most respected members of the post-Nouvelle Vague group of French auteurs. Pialat, a demanding director who frequently alienated cast and crew, only produced ten features before his death in 2003 but remained a dominant figure in French film culture through the 90s. The respect and resentment the combative director generated in cinephiles manifested when he won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1987 for "Under the Sun of Satan." The crowd met the announcement with boos. He returned their love with a special gesture of his own.

"L'enfance nue" is a unique gesture as well, but one far more inviting to viewers. There are films that bear a resemblance to it (Several of Philippe Garrel's movies come to mind, "I, Pierre Rivière…" by Rene Allio) but nothing precisely like this hell-bent bombshell. Maurice Pialat arrived fully-formed with his first film.

VIDEO

The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The progressive transfer was restored from a 35-mm interpositive. Criterion has only released this on SD. Image quality is typically sharp for this studio, but the color palette isn't particularly bright and the colors don't seem to be separated as sharply as we might expect. I don't know how much of this is from the source print, but it just feels a little cooler and drabber than it "ought" to be. I might be wrong. The image has been cleaned up significantly, but there are still modest signs of dirt and debris from the source, mostly at the edges of the frame (as is often the case) but nothing significant. It's a strong product overall, but not top tier Criterion.

AUDIO

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Mono. This is a very quiet film, but ambient sound is significant in several scenes and I think it is well served in this mix. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.

EXTRAS

For a single disc, this is heavily-loaded with extras.

"Autour de ‘L'enfance nue'" (1969, 52 min.) is a documentary shot by Daniel Creusot and Francis Warin for the television program "Choses vues." It analyzes both Pialat's film and the plight of children in the foster care system. I only watched the first ten minutes of this and it didn't capture my attention, but I was also very tired so I can't pass judgment on it.

"L'amour existe" (1960, 20 min.) is a short film directed by Pialat that apes the poetic documentary style but with a decidedly acerbic perspective on life in the rapidly developing banlieues (suburbs) of Paris. It's a beautifully rendered film, but I was put off by its snarky put down of all-things suburban which he views as an animal-like, hard-scrabble hell on earth. This film originally brought him to the attention of François Truffaut, then also a young director just establishing himself, and Truffaut would become one of the producers of "L'enfance nue."

The disc also includes an unusually revealing interview (15 min.) with Maurice Pialat which originally aired on the program "Champ contre-champ" on Feb 12, 1973 immediately the first television broadcast of "L'enfance nue." Pialat is interviewed by Michel Martens, and, oddly enough, spends most of his time apologizing for "L'enfance nue" which must make this a unique inclusion on a Criterion disc (or any other DVD). He appears to be shamed by the commercial failure of the film, and promises he won't make the same mistake again. Considering how closely he stuck to his guns throughout his career, it appears he either changed his mind or was just having fun with the interviewer. I loved this extra.

My favorite extra, however, is the 11-minute visual analysis by Kent Jones (author of "Physical Evidence: Selected Film Criticism" which I am currently halfway into and enjoying the heck out of). This visual and narrative analysis plays as well as the best Tag Gallagher visual essays Criterion has previously included. This extra will help contextualize the film which I don't think deserves to be called "difficult" but which contains depths and subtleties that may not be readily apparent on a first viewing. I just wish this one ran longer. (For the record, I swear I sketched out my review before watching Jones' analysis. So if you notice any overlap, as far as I'm concerned, he's just echoing what I already wrote. OK?)

The final extra in the collection is a 2003 interview with Arlette Langmann (co-writer of "L'enfance nue" though she claims little involvement with the script during the interview) and filmmaker Patrick Grandperret who worked as Pialat's assistant director. The interview was filmed shortly after Pialat's death, and is interesting if not particularly revelatory. It's only 6 minutes, so what can you expect?

The 12-page insert booklet features an excellent essay by critic Phillip Lopate.

FILM VALUE

If my review reads a bit coolly, it's because superlatives are inappropriate to convey the tone of this button-downed study in efficiency. But let me be clear. This is a fantastic film. "L'enfance nue" deserves to be considered one of the great debut features of the last half century, a thunderbolt heralding the arrival of a distinctive visionary. Damn it, I can't resist saying it: "L'enfance nue" is a masterpiece.

Enough hyperbole. The film stands on its own. Watch it and you will understand.