Full Speed (1998)

The wonderful and ambitious film examines issues of race, art and romance both gay and straight in modern France through a quartet of very diverse young friends united by a common factor: their unrequited love for one another.

Convoluted

This is a story that I found extremely confusing. It doesn't matter whether a movie is intended to have gay or straight issues, but you would like to know which direction the main characters take you. Unfortunately, I found no peace watching this movie. It is extremely tragic (as someone gets shot to death right off the beginning of the movie), depressing, and depicts racism (which shows that this problem is universal). There is one consolation, the director must have found all of the most beautiful Arab kids in the entire France, as there are a lot of very athletic, masculine, attractive, mostly Arab men.

The plot concentrates on four young people (late teens or early twenties), Julie, Jimmy (Stephane Rideau of "Come Undone"), Quentin, and Samir. Samir is the boy whose friend gets shot in the beginning, is a beautiful Arab boy. Jimmy, is the rebel rouser, very popular stud whose body he displays as trophy. Quentin is the ambitious published young writer who leaves for Paris after success. Julie was involved first with Quentin, after he left, she becomes involved with Jimmy. And Samir is the only gay person of the group who becomes infatuated with Quentin, but he rejects him because I think he is straight. Quentin exploits Samir for the story of his first love (the boy who got shot) to publish another book.

Samir becomes the target of a racist attack by some guys of the town. Jimmy intervenes to help and gets hit in the head. Jimmy dies from his head injuries. Samir shoots one of the guys involved in the attack, he was a butcher in the local market. The movie ends with the funeral of Jimmy, Samir allowed to attend the funeral but on handcuffs with the police. Quentin had returned earlier to town but ignored all of his old friends. He attended the funeral but he got the same treatment by everybody. Julie is all despondent and very depressed as she lost her love. Quentin try to make up but was rejected. And that is it. The last scene was Quentin running through the fields, stopping to watch a happy family of gypsies singing, I do not know the meaning of that scene.

I found the story interesting but was disappointed of the movie. December 19, 2007

"Full Speed" Moves Too Slowly

In "Full Speed" we have another French film, apparently made on a low budget, that ultimately doesn't hold together very well. Perhaps something was lost in translation but I was left wanting more, not sure why what happened happened and unwilling to look at the movie again to try to put it together.

The film is directed by Gael Morel and stars Mezziane Bardadi as Samir, a French Arab who has recently lost a lover because of an accident. He falls for Quentin (Pascal Cervo) who has just had his first novel published and is pretty much a cad. His best friend is Jimmy (Stephane Rideau). The film also stars Elodie Bouchnez as Julie who manages to sleep with both Jimmy and Quentin. Nobody seems to know exactly what he or she wants as A falls for B who falls for C who might fall for A or B.

There is violence, death and the obligatory dose of angst. The French either do this sort of film very well or not so well. This one is not a keeper. September 10, 2007

Love: Four Divertimenti

Gaël Morel co-wrote (with Catherine Corsini) and directed this very French exploration of the manifestations of love in a style that feels more like eavesdropping on private encounters than on a linear drama. The plot is actually tightly woven around each of the four characters, at the same time giving the effect of four characters' viewpoints on love.

Samir (Mezziane Bardadi) is a French Arab from Algeria who opens the film in a tender frolic with his 'blood brother' and quickly witnesses the accidental death of the man he loves. He travels to a small town in France, lonely, needy, feeling like an outsider (remember the history of the French Algerian conflict) and encounters a young novelist Quentin (Pascal Cervo) celebrating the publication of his first novel with his best friend Jimmy (Stéphane Rideau) and his girlfriend Julie (Élodie Bouchez) in a dance bar. Samir and Quentin make eye contact and soon a brief assignation outside the club leads to a kiss that the vulnerable Samir views as a sign of love but that Quentin views as strange but as possible content for his next novel.

Quentin loves Julie, Julie loves Quentin, but has an eye on Quentin's best friend Jimmy, a lad faithful to his friendship with Quentin to the point of fending off Julie's enamourment. But when Quentin and Samir begin spending extended periods of time together (Samir longing for a physical relationship, Quentin refusing but intent on gathering information for his novel), affinities are tested. Quentin departs for Paris to write, Jimmy and Julie begin a lusty affair, and Samir feels again deserted by a lover. Samir is attacked by gay bashers and defended by Quentin who in the course of the fight sustains a head injury, an injury at first easily resolved but one that later leads to tragedy. Quentin returns from Paris to discover Julie has found love with Jimmy and while Samir's obsession with Quentin races at the new availability of Quentin as a partner, Quentin is disgusted and returns to his career as a writer in Paris and the story comes to a protracted ending with a series of sad incidents: Quentin, the core of each of the love stories remains aloof, dedicated to his growing fame as a writer and gleaning the events as fodder for his assent to literary fame.

The stories are bound with threads of same-gender love, homophobia, human frailty and need. The actors are all beautiful for the eye and render tender performances. The countryside of France is exquisitely captured by cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie and director Gaël Morel manages to weave these little stories in a conversational, simple manner that appeal to the heart and the eye. For some the film may seem rambling and disconnected and unfairly compared to 'The Wild Reeds', but Morel has a sensitive, gentle manner in setting a mood that allows it to flow like a stroll through the flowering woods of young passions. Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06
January 8, 2006

Relevant Today

Full Speed is a wonderfully energetic film that provides viewers with glimpses of the issues that (literally) have exploded in France in the last few days. Stephane Rideau is an excellent actor, and I think that this film captures his (then) burgeoning acting range. Gael Morel provided me with a sense of contemporary diverse French youth culture. I highly recommend this film. November 8, 2005

Wild Reeds Reunited

Full Speed [A toute vitesse] reunites three of the best young stars to come out of France in a long time: Stephane Rideau and Elodie Bouchez, directed by Wild Reeds co-star Gael Morel. The viewing experience of some films is enhanced by watching another one first. This is the case here. Before you watch this movie, go out and buy (that's right, don't rent, buy) The Wild Reeds [Les roseaux sauvages]. At Full Speed is fine by itself, no question, but you'll enjoy it a lot more if you watch The Wild Reeds first. It was made by André Téchiné two years before. For those who don't know, André Téchiné is a wonderful French
director who has a certain knack for beautifully-filmed movies. Even from watching one of his movies you can pick up on his techniques. Well, Gaël Morel, the director of this movie and one of the stars of Reeds picked up so much from Téchiné that he decided to make movies himself. After several shorts made-for-tv, some starring Rideau, this is his first major motion picture. Unless you knew for sure that Téchiné was not the director you'd swear he made Full Speed. All his little trademark techniques are there. Morel starred in Reeds with Rideau and Bouchez, and one of the plot elements was the Algerian war in the 60's. In Speed, Morel has Rideau and Bouchez together again, with the Algerian war is a plot element, retrospectively though, as At Full Speed is set in modern times. Further, these actors, Rideau and Bouchez, both wonderfully talented in their own right, went on to star together in several other movies, and Morel directed them in a few of those. Kind of like a French brat pack. Stéphane Rideau is one of these French sex-symbols, and any film he's in is worth watching. He's been compared to a modern-day James Dean. Set in a Paris suburb, in Full Speed we see Rideau (Jimmy) as a rebellious but sensitive young man dealing with his best friend Cervo's sudden fame as a young author. Bouchez has the same trouble in her relationship with Cervo. The distance between them all increases when a young gay Algerian with a story to tell steps in. Rideau and Bouchez hook up, and Cervo doesn't seem to care about them anymore: he has the young Algerian to write about. He wrote about Rideau, published his story, and now he's moving on. This all goes on against a background of a modern French ethnic suburb. A variety of emotional set-tos take place amongst the four characters illustrating betrayal, isolation, loneliness, and introspective conflicts, all ending tragically. Critics claimed that Full Speed was sometimes disjointed, with scenes that seem to have nothing to do with what's going on, or an ending that makes no sense at all (as is sometimes the case in French movies, you're left wondering what happened). But in this movie, while the continuity may not be as didactic as some mainstream blockbuster moviegoers might like, the connectivity is apparent if the viewer pays attention and listens to what's going on, something sorely lacking in North American audiences. Whether this is possible by simply reading sub-titles is unclear, so try to follow the dialogue if you can understand French. This movie is a fine first major effort on the part of Morel, and most of the credit for its success goes to Rideau and Bouchez. And André Téchiné too for sure. And Morel knows it. A must-see for both Rideau fans and for fans of French dramas featuring attractive young men and women. But remember, see The Wild Reeds first to enjoy this one more. Rideau and Morel are reunited onscreen once more by Techine in Loin, another must-see French movie. September 21, 2005

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