Looking down on a visibly distraught young woman as she scurries along an escalator stairwell into the blackness of the subway, François Ozon again marks his latest effort with his signature flourish: he likes to watch. In a career verging on four decades worth of films, the writer/director has made voyeurism one of his narrative and thematic trademarks. Whether observing with subtlety in 8 Women and Potiche, or leering more overtly in Swimming Pool and In the House, his features maintain more than the normal filmmaking gaze. Ozon’s cinematic offerings often peer into the lives of protagonists defined by the act of seeing or being seen.
In Young & Beautiful (Jeune & jolie), the helmer establishes the act of looking from the outset, long before schoolgirl turned call girl Isabelle (Marine Vacth, My Piece of the Pie) finds the need to flee a city hotel after a lusty encounter. That’s in spring; months before, Isabelle was a carefree teen sunning herself, sans top, on the beach on a family holiday. Her younger brother, Victor (Fantin Ravat, TV’s Crossed Hearts), lingered over her every move, asking for details when she lost her virginity to her summer fling on the eve of her 17th birthday. When the deed itself occurred, she imagined herself witnessing the act as well as taking part in it.
When they return home to Paris, Isabelle continues her performative parade, this time for strangers and for money. As the seasons pass, others scrutinize her naked form and her ill-thought-out decisions. Whether in bed with her favourite client (Johan Leysen, The Verdict), bearing the brunt of her mother’s (Géraldine Pailhas, Bus Palladium) awareness of her actions, not-so-subtly flaunting her sexual charisma in front of her stepfather (Frédéric Pierrot, Populaire), or attempting to eke out an honest relationship with a school friend (Laurent Delbecque, Michael Kohlhaas), someone is always looking on.
Darkness lurks in Ozon’s coming-of-age examination of prostitution at perhaps its most apathetic, as does distance – in narrative, and in its enacting in all areas of the cinematic medium. Wearing the traits of the film’s title as a badge of honour, Isabelle willingly tests boundaries but seems unconcerned with her chosen direction as she matures from a girl to a woman, only interested in the ample attention and clandestine thrills her new line of work garners. As she hurtles along a path that plunges her deeper into a vastly different lifestyle, she embraces the power of her choices, but also wears the cost. The veteran writer/director erects the feature in her image, glaring matter-of-factly at a central character unravelling in empathy but growing in confidence.
With director of photography Pascal Marti’s (A Better Life) evocative vision obvious in its presence in Isabelle’s life but always viewing from a position of safety, Young & Beautiful looks and feels intrusive yet spacious. The film demonstrates precision in visuals that give the impression of being taken from afar even when they’re not, its alternating scenes of copulation and confrontation dripping with deliberation. This is an offering, like much of Ozon’s work, that simultaneously tries to flaunt and hide its construction and observation – and the juxtapositions in style and form only increase as the feature wears on.
That Rimbaud’s poem ‘No-One’s Serious at Seventeen’ is quoted early in the film offers an insight not only to the eventual outcome for the central character but of its performance, the contrasts again continuing. Young & Beautiful bears witness as the alluring Vacth is unflinching in her solemn exterior, but her grave demeanour, as convincingly conveyed as it is by the attractive model turned actress, is just a game – as is Ozon’s entire film. Again, he peers, plays, tests and toys, his leading lady offering the perfect embodiment of pushing the limits. Vacth’s Isabelle constructs her sexual identity out of boredom as much of empowerment. Ozon creates his coming-of-age portrait to probe as well as challenge perception. The end result engages and remains aloof, watching and inviting scrutiny – but not judgment – of its complex protagonist.
Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars
Young & Beautiful (Jeune & jolie)
Director: François Ozon
France, 2013, 95 mins
Release date: May 1
Distributor: Entertainment One
Rated: R
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