LE SOUFFLE aka DEEP BREATH

Year: 2001
UK: Metro Tartan Distribution
Cast: Pierre-Louis Bonnetblanc, Dominique Chevallier, Maxime Dalbrut, Jean-Claude Lecante, Jean Milord, Stephane Terpereau, Thierry Benoiton, Pierre Lasvaud, Laurent Simon, Laure Magadoux, Françoise Masset, Yvon Reperant, Max Eyrolle, Antoine Lacomblez
Director: Damien Odoul
Country: France
Language: French (English subtitles)
UK: 77 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and one scene of animal slaughter
UK Release Date: 11 April 2003

Synopsis

This auspicious feature film debut by Damien Odoul, tells the story of an alienated teenage boy who lives with his uncle in the French countryside.

Bored, restless and full of aggressive energy, David (Pierre-Louis Bonnetblanc) is rambunctious and undirected. A hormonal male adolescent who storms around the farmyard, headphones jammed over his head, his outbursts of high energy followed by a kind of listless meandering. With an inevitable sense of momentum, small incidents are transformed into grander events and David finds his burgeoning maturity put to the test over the course of a hot, sunny day.

LE SOUFFLE portrays a decentred male protagonist in search of an identity. Away from home for the long summer, David's only community are the rough and vulgar country-folk from the surrounding farmland. On this particular day, their earthy sense of life and humour comes to the fore as they gather for a barbeque.

They sit down to eat and his uncle gives David his first drink, encouraged by the other men. The ensuing moments of drunken male repartee lead gradually into poetic scenes of reverie and daydream, beautifully filmed and conceived.

As the afternoon drifts forward, a fuzzy-headed David leaves the party to meet up with a fellow teenage friend and they wander off through the fields and streams of the countryside to engage in their own form of male bonding.

It is not long before a different and more serious kind of drama begins to emerge.