GRANDE ECOLE

France, 2004, 110 minutes, Colour.
Gregori Baquet, Alice Taglioni, Jocelyn Quivrin, Elodie Navarre, Arthur Jugnot, Salim Kechiouche.
Directed by Robert Salis.

The Grande Ecole of the title is a Paris Institute for business studies.

The film opens in Carcassonne with vistas of the mediaeval Castle and walls. Two young men are at a party, preparing to go to Paris to study. One is Bernard, his mother, when they get to Paris, insists on the biggest room in the student wing for her son, although it is occupied by the third young man who shares the apartment, Louis-I’m? no. However, the central character is Paul.

While the film is about contemporary business, deals and sales, it is also very much a film about sexuality as well as sexual orientation. Already, at the initial party, the audience has seen Paul valued his parents and go to a room with his girlfriend, Agnes. She is also studying in Paris, concerned about human rights. Bernard has a girlfriend but he is very much the less a character in the story. Louis-Arnaud? becomes the focus of attention, a clever young man, aristocratic and wealthy, who also has a girlfriend, Emeline.

The film is something of a variation on dangerous liaison is. While Paul sees himself as heterosexual, he becomes interested in, then attracted to Louis-Arnaud?. The sexual attraction is highlighted by Louis-Arnaud? and his involvement in watersports with a brief but explicit shower sequence (and later longer one with Paul gazing at the showering men).

A subplot in the film concerns a young Arab worker, the men doing work around the school, his brother involved in music but unstable, later stabbing Louis-Arnaud? when he thinks he has been slighted. The men at work are considered by most as being of a lower class. The young worker is also homosexual, responds well when Paul intervenes for his rights, takes him out to a club, makes an advance which Paul rejects but later makes connection and they begin an affair.

Agnes senses what is happening and she proposes a wager with Paul. Each will try to seduce Louis-Arnaud? with consequences for their own relationship which, in fact, continues quite explicitly.

In the meantime, there are some sequences of social justice, a man imprisoned been interviewed by Agnes, her going to a justice speech, and is trying to get Louis-Arnaud? to intervene in a case to get his parents influence.

Paul is not really interested in the business course. Bernard finds it very difficult.

Ultimately, Paul has to make a decision about his orientation. He breaks the affair with the Arab worker. In the meantime, Agnes Butler behave seductively with Louis-Arnaud? – with affecting results for Emeline.

Very French – the screenplay leaving it to the audience to respond to each of the characters, the wager, attitudes towards sexual behaviour and sexual orientation, with a questionmark at the end rather than everything made clear for everyone involved.