CLEMENT-VIEL ZU JUNG - MOVIE [DVD] [2001]

Clement is a 13 year old boy who embarks on a full on sexual relationship with Marion a head strong and free spirited 28 to 30 year old woman. The relationship spirals out of control as she becomes obsessed with him and he starts to cool as he starts to become interested in a girl his own age. She takes him out of school for days of sex in a hotel and a flat. But looses all control and virtually kidnaps him outside of his school to give him oral in her car. but you can see this will not end well. the kissing is very heavy and real and frequent. but the lack of English subtitles makes it difficult to follow the gist of the dialogue.

Filming obscure at times

The item itself is fine however if the product details state English subtitles then someone should be checking this is the case (quality controls Amazon) as the 2018 version has French and German dubbed options only

Emmanuelle Bercot, whose most recent film La tete haute opened the Cannes Film Festival this year, was brave indeed to have made Clement back in 2001. In it she explores the theme of a sexual relationship between a 30-year-old woman and a boy of 13, the Clement of the title. Bercot wrote, directed and played the lead, and the film does raise a lot of interesting questions, even though many viewers would probably reject it out of hand. Initially this free-spirited woman, Marion, who already has two adult lovers and works as a photographer, goes to her godson's birthday party and falls in with his crowd - which includes Clement - surprisingly easily. This in itself could be seen as alarming, and a conversation she has with the boy already finds her crossing a line in terms of tone. They later meet at the swimming pool by chance, and Clement shows again his interest in her, and before long their contact has taken on board a physical dimension which he initially wants but which quickly goes wrong. It is, in a sense, a very moral film, because without recourse to any legal or social redress Bercot shows how unbalanced the relationship is, how frustrating for Marion, even though she seems to fall for him, and how a proper communication between them is not possible on these terms. For most of the film she treats him with quite a lot of regard for his age, combining this tenderness with a Janis Joplin-like wild side that is quite appealing, if a bit lacking in self-control. She treats him well in all but the most obvious way, perhaps, so the fact that it ends so miserably leaves any viewer in no doubt that it would almost inevitably be this way - he is, quite simply. too young for this kind of interaction, and when she starts to put pressure on him, you feel how uncomfortable it is, and unfair on him.The moral barometer of the film is very sharp, in contrast to the rather grainy, dark, hand-held camera images. The music by Bach, and Franck's Piano Quintet, adds a certain beauty at times, matched by the corresponding images, so that there could be seen to be some ambiguity - it isn't completely unredeemed, but certainly undesirable. The look of it is a bit like John Cassavetes in the hotel bedrooms, or Patrice Chereau, but the film also has a certain feminine gentleness and thoughtful inner life that makes even the most sexual scenes somehow pass off better than they would if it was shot by a man. The feeling that the film's vision somehow envelops Clement in something maternal and protective offsets the action of the film, which can only be seen as quite abusive, although probably without long-term consequences, I would imagine. It is a noble film, really, in that it explores a taboo that it shows to be essentially well founded by taking the viewer away from the hysteria and showing one experience of this kind of thing in its everyday reality and imbalance. On this German DVD it is presented in its original French version, or the dubbed German version, which is 13 minutes longer. Neither has any subtitle option.

rubbish