A Paris Education

Aspiring filmmaker Etienne (Andranic Manet) leaves his "provincial" town of Lyons for film school in Paris in this French drama. Shot in black-and-white and directed with a laidback ease, it’s a long, talky movie that meanders through philosophical debates (both in class and at parties) and romantic affairs as Etienne makes friends with fellow cinephiles, becomes obsessed with the outspoken (and generally disliked) student Mathias (Corentin Fila), and cheats on his hometown girlfriend in a series of affairs. Etienne is crippled by self-doubt, which helps explain his man crush on student provocateur Mathias, and he has a tendency to avoid making hard decisions, passively letting others do the breaking up and moving on. Some viewers will consider this to be just the kind of "whiny French film" that Mathias complains about, but it’s a brand that the film embraces as it explores the passion and intensity of young adults as they dive into art (or politics, or whatever matters to them) and struggle to find themselves in the crucible of academia and kindred souls. Film fans will have fun with the cinematic debates over the merits of Italian horror auteurs and the state of modern French cinema but that’s a small part of the overall film. The pretentions of the students are spot on, capturing the self-involved state of young people at a time when philosophical positions can seem like the defining element of their lives. Filmmaker Jean-Paul Civeyrac (a film professor himself) follows their evolution through solipsism to a more mature approach to life. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)