Genèse (Genesis)

The drama is an intricately constructed and intensely felt work that transcends the easy “coming-of-age” genre label that is so tempting to slap onto it.

Often very funny, especially in classroom scenes filled with unconventional teachers and unruly pupils, the film also shows real feeling for the tangled workings of the human heart and the way individuals are at their loneliest in a crowd of people.

Lesage’s filmmaking, with its unhurried editing and eerily echoing music cues, is in expert sympathy with his hovering, out-of-time protagonists.

Both Pellerin and Abita are tremendous, each fiercely charismatic in a way that doesn’t compromise the vulnerability of their characters.

Genèse concludes as a sober reminder that the young always feel intensely, but that the years between the crush that shines and the ardor that confounds are short ones, indeed.

The film may be maddening as a character study, and it could damage an ionizer with its air of self-importance, but its experiments in form and tone are highly original.

Lesage pulls focus onto the aftershocks of trauma rather than the traumatic events themselves.