If there was a poll to find the greatest French film of all time, you might expect La Règle Du Jeu or À Bout De Souffle or Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion to all be in contention. Yet if you had to pick the most French film of all time, you’d have to go a long way to beat A Paris Education. The story of student filmmakers smoking, shagging and having lofty conversations about the nature of film and revolution, Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s film is full of scenes, tropes and ideas that have played out over the past 60 years of Gallic cinema. But if it does little that is new, it is well played by a committed young cast and captures a particular time of life in all its messy, heady, aspirational glory.
At its heart, A Paris Education is a cerebral take on a college movie, a better-read Starter For 10. Etienne (Manet) bids Lyon and his longterm girlfriend Lucie (Diane Rouxel) goodbye to study cinema at the Université de Paris. Here he makes friends with flatmate Valentina (a sparky Jenna Thiam), Jean (Van Bervesselès), who has a thing for Etienne, and Mathias (Fila), a charismatic, loud-mouthed cinephile on whom Etienne develops a man-crush. What follows is a lot of film buff talk — the merits of Paolo Sorrentino, Dario Argento, Paul Verhoeven, John Ford and Jean Vigo all get debated — various sexual liaisons, shifting friendships and a tangible hunger to be creative and expressive, with little of the actual follow through.
Pierre-Hubert Martin’s black-and-white cinematography adds a tangible nostalgic, romantic streak to the idea of self-discovery and being creative. But while it looks like a French New Wave movie and courses with a similar love of movies, it doesn’t ever reach either the intellectual precision or formal innovation and playfulness (the lengthy running time doesn’t help here). Still, as a portrait of young intellectuals before the hooks of reality sink in, it’s enjoyable, engaging stuff, strong on the joys of finding new friends and new ideas in perhaps the most beautiful city in the world.