BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

didier-20 The problem with this film is that it appears to have set out with the intention to be broadly exploitative about the wider questions concerning the nature of seduction, sexual awakening, discrimination , freedom and so forth.However the manipulative spectacle which governs the seduction of Jonas becomes so outrageous that it ends up becoming the central axis of anxiety that dominates the main thematics within the work. We slide quickly from ambitious reaching for parallels which involve evocations of idealised intellectual emancipation and a nod to ancient Greek love. Where do we end up ? Subsumed in uncomfortable realisations about the clumsy motives which lie behind the adult desires to which we are spectators. There unfolds a glaring itinerary of dubious motives.1. Jonas initially approaches his adult friends for help about a very specific issue (premature ejaculation) but far from helping him, they never identify the issue but rather use it to increase their grasp over the boy by introducing a confusing melange of pornographic speak. 2. The adult group effectively chase away Jonas' girlfriend presumably because she is not compliant with their intentions or power over Jonas. 3. We never actually see the scene where Jonas agrees to submit to a group sexual encounter. Because of this it is difficult to assess the moment he crosses over into their world and is entirely seduced. 4. When Pierre isolates Jonas and begins his own seduction the question which rises is whose pleasure is he really pre-occupied with ? The boy's own relationship with pleasure or Pierre's desire to sexually over- power the boy and fulfil his sexual conquest.Both Jonas and his girlfriend challenge the adult's power by backing away sharply at some point. The very fact of this awkwardness indicates a failure of Pierre and ultimately the adult group to transmit his/their noble sexual awakening project. The question arises, why did it fail or why was it so flawed in the end ?The abuse here is not strictly speaking outside the law and illegal so much as it is about the insensitivity of adults to the vulnerability and naivety of youth AS WELL AS to a notion of inter-relational abuse regardless of the issue of age. The adults violate their relation to Jonas when they use his problem with premature ejaculation to ensnare him as a candidate for sexual recreation within their group by not providing clear solutions for his needs but instead playing with him. They further abuse him by openly ridiculing the boundaries of his relationship with his girlfriend in what is an unforgivable act of adult manipulation. Finally Pierre abuses Jonas by offering a sexual experience that is closeted, furtive, rather squalid, lacking in a sense of fun and ultimately serving his own interests and this a a far cry from all the talk about the freedom of sexual pleasure as a form of self emancipation. It's a shame the film lost touch with what appears to be it's original broader potential. Had Jonas been seduced by someone who was more at ease with his sexuality, more playful, giving, indeed well adjusted as a feminine gay man, Jonas' seduction may well have been a positive portrayal of precisely the ideals Pierre harks on about. However the message of the film was in the end ambivalent concerning if it thought gay was OK as an option over and above a flawed notion of bisexuality devoid of emotional attachment which it was at odds to present to Jonas as the acceptable form of sexual fluidity. To this extent one had to wonder what Jonas had been taught in the end about sex, his body and power etc and if he had indeed missed out on a more effective awakening of sexual self knowledge which could have been experienced through more likable, well intentioned, wiser, better adjusted peers.

Lycian This movie depicts a sexual abuse of a male child by his "friends" who help him with his tennis training and school exams.The child has three elder "friends", one of them is a female. His mother and father are far away and he is alone with "them".There are 5 abuses depicted in the movie which take place when the child is in the "protection" of those elders.At first, the child is exposed to a sexual discussion in which the "elders" try to indoctrinate him about "infidelity" and they try to convince him to have sex with one of them.In the second, an elder, finally forces and convinces him to have sex with her while the child is drunk. The child's eyes are tied. Other two people watch him at that abuse.The third is a homosexual child abuse. While the second abuse is continuing, one of the male elders "take turn" and abuse him. At that moment, the child doesn't know a male is giving blow-job to him. He thinks a woman is doing it.The fourth is another homosexual child abuse. The second elder, who helps with exams, pushes to, convinces, and gives the boy a blow-job while the boy is trying to study to his exams.The fifth is again another homosexual child abuse. Like the previous, same elder "gay" person first gives him a blow-job then he penetrates the boy making it an "anal intercourse with a child".The elders use/abuse "Position of trust" to convince and push him to have sex with each of them.When the child accuses them for abusing him, the last abuser accuses him back with being an "opportunist". The movie takes side with the elders and it is depicted as if it is "normal" for elders to have sex with a child.The last guy says "I never did anything that you refused" or something like "I never forced you to do anything." And the child is showed as walking back into house as a justification of all this sexual abuse.I think producers, writers, and directors of this movie think that it is normal for an elder to have sex with a child if he or she doesn't "refuse." They should have known that a child isn't equipped with mental competency to cope with child abusers. You can't justify having sex with a child by saying "he/she didn't say no!" This is a crime against humanity.I condemn who contributed to this movie.

adamsoch-1 Let's get something straight: the English translation of the title "Eleve Libre" is very, very wrong. It will confuse the viewer and it does not do justice to this sensitive, well-made, subtle work of art. "Free Student" is a 'mot à mot' translation but, if I invoke the creative goddess, I would be inspired and call the film: "Student with a Choice". The alternatives were always available to this 17 year old "not so keen to study" a talented tennis player who besides school, tennis, friends and family, also has to deal with sex, because nature was calling him to do so. But sex is something our society is NOT taking very seriously, besides saying: Just don't do it, or it is something shameful, dirty and embarrassing. Well, society got these erroneous notions from the old, and misguided religious texts, and most people are stuck with them even today. Sex is life, sex is normal, sex is beautiful and important in this unorthodox, well written, directed and edited film. The film is perfectly paced, it has a pleasant rhythm like a sexual act or better yet, like Ravel's Bolero; it starts slowly and it calmly arrives to a climax just in time for you to have lots of honest and uncommon questions. This film is also utterly sincere, open and nonjudgmental; it makes us uncomfortable, because the approach to life in general is different to what we are accustomed to. If you are not willing to let the wind of the "atypical" caress you, then this film is not for you, but if you are willing to see a group of people struggling with life in a very different way that will create discussion after the credits are rolling, get this gripping and attention-grabbing film. Jonas is an adorable, charming and open-minded talented teenager who is privately tutored not only in math, chemistry and geography but also the art of freethinking, going steady with his girlfriend and the art of sex. In a very crucial moment, his mother comes to visit and asks Jonas if all is well and if there is anything she can do for him, but he assures her that everything is fine and that he likes his private lessons.There are many layers and metaphors in this linear and simple story with extremely complex issues or unspoken topics, such as the sexual awakening of teenagers today. Jonas is quite sure about his sexuality and his attraction to the opposite sex, but open to experimentation with his adult friends when the time is right. In life, how do we know if anything is good or bad, wet or dry, sweet or bitter if one does not try them? Jonas does it and gets his assurance that he is very heterosexual. This crucial scene is handled elegantly by the sensitive, talented director Joachim Lafosse, and well acted by the young protagonist. Some viewers slandered the film, it is understandable, because the subject matter is taboo, and frankly, there is no other film like it. For those who think this work of art is perverted or abusive, I suggest to watch the end of the movie carefully, because the answer to this positive, rare and moving story it's there in the last 2-minutes, in the last 2 cuts of the film.

ynoel-2 It is said (and I have noted to be true) that people see in other people, in works of Art etc. or anything subjective, what THEY actually are. They project their own being, or shortcomings or fears or hidden secrets. That the author of the review below attack this sensitive film is such a disproportionately virulent (and plainly erroneous) way has said much more about him as a person than he probably intended to express. And to call a 17 year-old a 'child' (and who is in his full legal right to consent to any relationship he wishes to pursue, protected by the law itself) is so absurd as to suggest the author had a North American education. To see rape, to see perverted seduction in what is most obviously all but that, would be an alarm calm for anyone reading his review on this subtle film. What is sure is that with such a serious imbalance within him to feel the need to explode in this way, I would make sure no one below 18 walk near him. We have many recent examples of those who shouted far above the rest, and ended up being caught with their pants down, and I don't mean figuratively. His review reads like an open book of serious personal issues, as yet unresolved, and if his review serves any purpose it would be to help him seek assistance. More to do with the film now; it is of course slow and bleak like many European films, but like many European films dare to recount real life, real subtleties, real complexities of relationships that much cinema avoids - and that many like the author mentioned above would like to push so deep into (their subconscious) perversion as to ...create a perversion in itself, quite aside from the what the filmmaker made. It somehow makes them feel they have crushed their demon for a while - little to do with a review.