MARVIN OU LA BELLE EDUCATION

Anne Fontaine 2017 France 115min french
Synopsis:
Having withstood the erotic bullying and hateful graffiti of youth, sharp-eyed, broodingly handsome Marvin Bijoux (Jules Porier/Finnegan Oldfield) attempts to rise from the ashes of his working-class upbringing. Pleasure and pain, city and country intermingle as we dip in and out of Marvin’s searing memories, which often appear projected behind him as he furiously scribbles down scenes from his past in his Paris apartment. But friends and foes – a beneficent older lover, a radiant Isabelle Huppert (playing herself), a kindly gay couple harboring torments of their own, a homophobic father – also intermix in Marvin’s mind, until he is incapable of separating the oppressor from the oppressed and begins to mistake his own anger for power. Through tightly wound performances and writer and director Anne Fontaine’s incisive focus, the film traces Marvin’s gestation into a theatre artist and asks the viewer to ponder: what price must one pay for weaving straw into gold? – Michael Belcher