Le Grand Chemin (The Grand Highway)

As a metaphor for coming-of-age, the grand highway of life has certainly done its share of duty in past books, film and art. Here, director Jean Loup Hubert dips once again into the well, and comes up with a fresh, engaging look at youth on the verge of knowledge. The two principals are Louis (Antoine Hubert), a nine-year-old boy, who's been dropped off at his aunt's while his mother goes into the hospital to give birth, and Martine (Vanessa Guidj), a precocious ten-year-old whose sense of propriety is sacrilegious at best (when scolded by the town priest, she waits until his back is turned, and then lifts her dress in defiance.) Louis, a sensitive boy, gets it from three different directions. He meets his aunt Marcelle (Anemone) as she's preparing supper by bashing and skinning a rabbit before his (and our) eyes. His uncle Pelo (Richard Bohringer) is a goodhearted, but mournful drunk (the couple is childless). And Martine sets about instructing Louis in such dubious arts as climbing the church and urinating into the gutter so that the liquid jets forth from the mouth of a gargoyle. A sight which, needless to say, stuns the nuns. Louis, in short, gets an education, as aunt and uncle take out their own frustrations with each other by fighting for him, and Martine sows her own unique versions of sex and religion in Louis's spinning mind. The film is unrated because of the blasphemy and the rabbit killing. It's liable to draw heat from patrons. But it's a film that's well worth fighting for. Highly recommended.