7 April 2022

Lucile Hadžihalilović's La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996)

This medium-length film (fifty minutes) is by Gasper Noé's partner Lucile Hadžihalilović and we can see a clear preoccupation with young children as in her later films. Taking place mainly in a small appartment in an HLM, where Mimi (Sandra Sammartino) has been forced to go while her mother recovers from her suicide attempt, the colours here are predominantly sickly bright green and bright yellow.

This is racist territory, where Mimi's unwelcoming, self-centred aunt Solange (Denise Aron-Schropfer) willingly signs a petition against a family of Maghrébins (north Africans), and where Solange's new boyfriend Jean-Pierre (Michel Trillot) seems to be staying. Jean-Pierre's nature is shown by his violent use of strong language to a kindly neighbour who saw Mimi thrown out of the flat while Solange cleaned, and who let Mimi join him and his friends in a musical session; by him secretly watching a porn film on TV while Solange is asleep; but most of all by his casual attitude to a programme on paedophilia.

And Jean-Pierre is a paedophile, touching, stroking and trying to kiss the ten-year-old Mimi when Solange is out at work. For trying to warn Solange that he's a pédé Mimi gets a slapped face. Mimi attempts to escape a situation of sexual abuse over which she has no control by taking some of her aunt's diazepam supply, only to have her stomach pumped like her mother and to be sent back to her aunt and her paedophile boyfriend. Powerful and claustrophobic.

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