Critic Reviews

Teaching scenes in films always have a fascination for me, and these are tremendous; Mercier patiently, sometimes angrily, tries to get the students to appreciate the complexity, nuance, eroticism and social commentary in the frescoes and artwork.

It is so wholly transporting that its running time flies by unnoticed, and as it barrels toward its melancholic end, you’re left breathless in your seat wishing you could spend more time with these kids, hoping they will all be OK, even while knowing that life still has many more knocks waiting for them, and that perhaps none will be ever be as monumental as when love is lost, but if you have patience, also when it is found.

Featuring an impressive cast of unknowns and a fluid style that captures them with both lyricism and verisimilitude, this deserved winner of the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize announces the arrival of a formidable new talent.

The result is a film that contains nearly everything adolescence can hold: desire, embarrassment, friendship, cruelty, harassment, loneliness, tenderness, and fleeting moments of connection. Yet what lingers is neither nostalgia nor melancholy. It is the feeling of having spent time with people rather than characters. By the end of La Gradiva, Atlan has achieved something deceptively difficult. She has made observation feel like drama.

A major work played in a minor key, cinematographer-turned-director Marine Atlan’s magnificent, melancholic and moving feature directorial debut La Gradiva is one of those true discoveries that you only get a few times in life.

La Gradiva is not about overt bullying but rather an exploration of the mercurial nature of young group dynamics that zeroes in on the bruising pressure points of teenage life – that are as much self-generated as imposed by others.

The film is one of homespun naturalism, but Atlan also exhibits immense formal control.

La Gradiva successfully captures an unforgettable, life-altering field trip in 145 minutes.