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L'Esquive

Screening: Monday 26 March, 6:30pm

L’Esquive (Abdellatif Kechiche, France 2003)

A unique look at teenaged life and the liberating power of art, as well as a huge box-office hit upon its French release, L'Esquive (untranslatable slang meaning "to dodge") is told in the language, passion and humour of daily banlieue (suburban) life. Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche's intimate and energetic film takes place in the infamous projects outside Paris, which are usually portrayed in French films and newspapers as locales for racial tensions and gang violence. Not so in L'Esquive, which presents the intimate interrelations between a group of racially integrated, enthusiastic and foul-mouthed high-schoolers as they deal with life, love and the theatre.

The focus is the largely inarticulate Krimo, caught between the pesterings of his girlfriend, Frida, and the blonde Lydia — in the 19th arrondissement, she's a minority — who urges him to act with her in a school production of Marivaux's A Game of Love and Chance. In telling his bewitching tale of amour fou, Kechiche never condescends to his characters (all are expertly performed by neophytes) while drawing subtle links between Marivaux's story — in which servants use the language of the masters to change others' perception of them — and the teens' own universe.

The film swept the 2004 Césars (the French equivalent to the Oscars), winning awards for Best French Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Upcoming Actress (Forestier). Written by Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix. Photographed by Lubomir Bakchev. With Osman Elkharraz, Sara Forestier, Sabrina Ouazani, Nanou Benhamou. (35mm, Colour, 117 mins, In French with English subtitles)

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