A Brilliant Conflict

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Chris (Valerie Kaprisky) and her mother Claude (Caroline Cellier) are spending their vacation at a beach resort in the Côte d'Azur. Chris is an 18 year old teenager that is searching for her place in the world – she is sensitive, amoral, egocentric, erratic… and to get what she wants she doesn't mind trampling on other people. There's a hidden rivalry between Chris and her mother, Claude. Chris watches Claude and her relationships with a mixed feeling of jealousy and indignation, but the funny thing is that her mother seems not to be aware of what's taking place within Chris's mind. Chris has many relationships – She is sweet and dangerous - Chris takes people, uses them and disposes of them - she destroys them if necessary. But Chris feels also insecure and doesn't really know what she wants and where to go.The Côte d'Azur of the 80s is very freewheeling. Mother (Claude) and daughter (Chris) sunbathe topless (all the women on the beach do the same), and nudity is no problem at all in "L'Année des Meduses" (The year of the jellyfish). The beautiful Valerie Kaprisky appears frequently naked, but "The year of the jellyfish" is not an exploitation film and the nudity comes naturally - it plays an important part in the environment described by the film. People go to the Côte d'Azur (or any other beach resort) not just to swim, enjoy the scenery or go to discos - they are also looking for something different… different love games, new thrills etc...There's a difference between "The year of the jellyfish" and the similar-themed Italian films of the 70s (perverse/sweet teenage girl). The Italian films (at least those that I've seen), are sexual/romantic (sex and fantasy) and they may be cynical, but many of them are also a bit naive and sentimental. "The year of the jellyfish", on the other hand, is more grim, but it's neither a gray, nor an existentialist film - there's the Côte d'Azur, the girls, the beautiful scenery and the blue sky… and the film displays a subtle irony and sense of humor. Besides showing a greater sense of reality there's sometimes a discreet poetry in its images.Those that are tired of the conventional youth films made nowadays should check out "The year of the jellyfish" – it's a breath of fresh air.

Not for everyone: one could almost dismiss it as a soft sexploitation movie from the eighties. But no.This is about an obsessive little girl who is turning into a woman. The characters around her are here to reflect the wicked light she is shining, and emphasize facets of her personality, as she is wrecking havoc around her.It is all then about the sexual desires of women and men. How they cheat. Whom they love. What it is that they want. What they would do to get it. Only one character is "not normal " in this movie, and this is the scary part: all the others could be us to some degree.One flaw in this movie: the voice-over on two occasions. Obviously the director could not find a way could convey the message. Pity. Otherwise, it would have a perfect little venomous movie.

Chris is eighteen and summering with her 38 year-old Mom in the south of France. Also spending the summer at the resort is Romain. Two years earlier Chris met and fell in love with Romain. He used her and broke her heart. Now she is a cynical manipulator, with a lesbian lover at school and a middle-aged male friend of her parents, Vic.The story of how Chris comes to terms with her love for Romain is told through the eyes of several people, including an unseen narrator, and flashbacks.There are several interesting side stories that help develop the main characters. The setting of the south of France is great. Visually stunning. Also the choice of music is very interesting.The primary deficiency is some editing problems and the subtitles run off the screen sometimes.

This is only a passable thriller I guess, but I found it interesting for several reasons. First, it is surprisingly trashy and unpretentious for a French movie. While the Italians and the Spanish have made tons of movies like this, the French have always seemed more hesitant to make flat-out genre or exploitation movies without a lot of high-art pretensions. This film is a trashy "lethal Lolita"-type flick along the lines of "Pretty Poison" or "The Crush" (or Italian equivalents like "Peccati di gioventu"). The cinematography, however, is quite impressive--up to the high French standards of arthouse films like "Pauline on the Beach" or "One Wild Moment". It helps that, like those movies, it was filmed in a cinematographer's paradise, the south of France. And, of course, it also features the very, um, photogenic Valerie Kaprisky (who is usually topless and often completely nude) as the lethal Lolita. Kaprisky was in some pretty interesting French movies like this and "La Femme Publique" before she was no doubt black-balled for appearing in the horrible Hollywood remake of "Breathless" with Richard Gere. This one is pretty hard to find, but is definitely worth looking for.