Description

C’est la vie 1990
La Baule-les-Pins (original title)
1h 50m | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 14 February 1990 (France)
Storyline:Summer 1958. Frédérique and Sophie go on vacation as they do every year to La Baule, where they find their uncle, Léon, nice and loud mouth, their aunt Bella, pregnant, and their little cousins. Like every year? Not quite. This year, Léna, their mother, is still staying in Lyon for mysterious reasons. If Sophie’s six-year-old’s don’t pay attention any more, Frédérique’s thirteen-year-old noticed a discomfort between Mom and Dad. In fact, nothing is going well. Léna can no longer support life with Michel, her husband, and is in love with a young artist, Jean-Claude. He comes to join Léna as soon as she arrives and finds her every evening on the beach, in her tent. The smoldering crisis does not prevent children from doing stupid things (setting fire to the Mickey Club, poisoning goldfish with suppositories), nor from experiencing their first emotional emotions. One day, Michel arrives. Things are going very badly, and Frédérique is forced to intervene to separate him from his mother. Lena then announces her decision to divorce the children. Michel will try to convince her one last time, but in vain. At the end of the holidays, Léna and the two little girls do not return to Lyon.User review:The is a very typically French slice of late Fifties middle-class life as seen during summer at the seaside when the parents’ marriage is breaking up. The looks, the behavior, the attitudes could only be French. In that sense the film has a certain fascination and, hopefully, period accuracy (it’s set in 1958).The subtext is that for a young teenage girl in a sociable world, with a sister and brothers and a pleasant uncle and aunt and an annoying nanny and a young boy interested in kissing her and a close relationship with the imaginary addressee of her daily diary, her parents’ disintegrating marriage is by no means the only thing going on in her world–especially given the fact that she’s at a summer resort in a rented house and the mother is often away and the father is almost always away. There is a lot going on, most notably the changes in herself. This is probably the film’s and Kurys’ real subject–only it’s a difficult one to put across and she doesn’t quite succeed. Ultimately too much is nonetheless going on, and it is all given too similar weight. Kurys, perhaps in her effort to balance autobiography with history and sociology, winds up making neither the adult nor the children’s point of view strong enough. Lindon, Bruni-Tedeschi, Bacri, Berry, and Baye have been in better films. However, they’re interesting actors, and the child actors are equally fine. This is not as bad or as great as some have suggested. It’s very watchable, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Not a disaster, and a sincere effort, but not successful storytelling and not finally a very memorable experience.
Director: Diane Kurys
Writers: Diane Kurys, Alain Le Henry
Stars: Nathalie Baye, Julie Bataille, Richard Berry
Country of origin: France
Language: French
Also known as: Ein Sommer an der See
Filming locations: La Baule, Loire-Atlantique, France
IMDB Profile tt0099200

C'est la vie (1990)

1990

6.2

Director: Diane Kurys

Writers: Diane Kurys, Alain Le Henry

Stars: Nathalie Baye, Julie Bataille, Richard Berry

Summary: The July 1958 vacation, on a beach on the Atlantic coast. Little Sophie, 8 years old, and her big sister Frédérique suffer from the bad understanding between their parents, presenting the drama of divorce which will not fail to occur.

Also known as: La Baule-les-Pins on DVD