André Téchiné's new jewel, BEING 17, may mark the top of his illustrious career -- with some help from Céline Sciamma

A great, unfolding love story, as well as a wondrous coming-of-age film, BEING 17 is the latest addition to the oeuvre of one of France's gifts to cinema, André Téchiné. Working steadily for over fifty years, Téchiné, shown below, is now 73 years old and his abilities only seem to grow stronger and more assured. Even what may look, upon initial viewing, like a misstep usually prove better with an additional watch. His are some of the best coming-of-age movies ever made: rich, wise and bone-deep. This filmmaker offers behavior above all, then lets us, along with his characters, struggle with the meaning of that behavior until it is somehow sorted out. Not always to the best ends. But always with truth, feeling and even, sometimes, humor.

In his latest film two boys, toward the end of their school years and on the cusp on young adulthood, find themselves engaged in angry competition and even physical fighting. This is brought on more by one -- Tomas, the mixed-race, adopted son of a kindly, hard-working farm family in the mountains -- than by the other, Damien, who is the son of the town's doctor mom and soldier father, the latter most often found abroad in some area of conflict.

Téchiné usually works with some of his country's best and most iconic actors -- from Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche to André Dussollier and Gérard Depardieu, as well as discovering and making the most of young talent that then goes on to find its own impressive career (Gaël Morel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and Roschdy Zem, among many others).

So it is again, as one of France's finest and most versatile actresses, Sandrine Kiberlain stars here as that doctor mom (the still boyish and beautiful Alexis Loret, above, right, of Alice and Martin, plays the soldier dad). Ms Kiberlain (two photos up and above, center) is as eloquent, exotically lovely and engulfing as ever, but the movie belong rightly to its two young stars: Kacey Mottet Klein (above, left, who already has a major resumé behind him, including Sister, Home and Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life) playing Damien, and newcomer Corentin Fila (below), who plays Tomas.

These two young men are terrific actors, representing that oh-so-tricky age of 17 to alternately ferocious and moving affect. There is not a false moment in any of their work nor in any of Téchiné's -- along with Ms Sciamma's who collaborated on the sensitive but never too-explanatory screenplay. Where these feelings of anger are coming from and why are the questions that keep arising, and the filmmaker lets the answers come haltingly and very believably.

I am not certain there is another movie-maker who understands any better how character-building is a thing that goes on and on, revealing itself in small increments along with the growth and change that occurs. And he has found two young actors who can embody this halting growth and change quite splendidly -- coming as it does at the most pivotal and difficult time of life. The two young actors keep us with them, held in an alternately angry and loving embrace, through events minor and major.

The film takes place over four seasons at school, in the home, on the farm and throughout the countryside. Being 17 is a visually beautiful movie (could there be a more gorgeous place to live than here?) but also an equally intelligent one. And it takes its place -- along with an earlier film this year, Summertime -- as one of, maybe the finest of dramas/earned-love-stories of our new millennium.

The movie -- from Strand Releasing and running a just-about-perfect 116 minutes (In French with English subtitles) -- opens this Friday, October 7, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the IFC Center, and in Los Angeles on Friday, October 14, at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7. Here in the South Florida area it will open on Friday, October 21,at the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables, the Tower Theater in Miami, the Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, and at the Lake Worth Playhouse in Lake Worth.  Click here, then scroll down to click on Screenings, to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters across the country where the movie will be shown over the next few weeks.

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"family" films, André Téchiné, BEING 17, coming-of age movies, French love stories, GLBT films, uncovering character,

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Maïwenn's MY KING explores amour fou from a female viewpoint -- less crazy, more loving

The movies of French film-maker Maïwenn keep getting better and stronger. From Pardonnez-moi through All About Actresses to Polisse and now MY KING (Mon roi), she seems to have become more disciplined as she has grown more mature. Her films have always been fun -- their overwrought moments often their most enjoyable -- but in her latest she tackles the subject of amour fou with a directness and clarity that is at once sad and bracing.

The filmmaker, shown at left, has cast her two leads actors about as well as you could want. Her leading lady, Emmanuelle Bercot, who won a deserved Best Actress award at this past year's Cannes fest, is herself a fine film director (Standing Tall, On My Way, Student Services, Backstage), while her leading man, Vincent Cassel (below), always sexy and charismatic, simply tops himself here. He's phenomenal: glowing, growing, then exploding with energy and charm beyond measure. Our king, indeed. (He actually played one in another of his recent films, Tales of Tales.)

Maïwenn's film begins with a mother named Tony (short for Marie-Antoinette: royalty is all over the place here) about to ski downhill. The next scene takes us to the office of physical therapist who offers up some holistic-sounding psycho-babble that might send some of us out the door. But mom has had a bad injury, the healing of which will take us right through to the end of the film, as she (and we) think back to earlier days and how she met and stuck with and by the guy who will become the love of her life.

The filmmaker does her back-and-forth between the past and present quite gracefully, so that we're never jarred and easily know where we are. We meet the group of injured young people with whom Tony will rehab, and we also meet the most important people in her circle as she negotiates the trying and tricky years with Georgio (Cassel).

These include her brother, who, regarding the great love of his sister's life, seems the most rational in the bunch -- and as he is played by the usually quite irrational, Louis Garrel (above), you've got to credit Maïwenn's ability to bring out surprising new layers in her actors.

What makes My King succeed especially well is that the entire viewpoint and attitude are coming to us via the character of Tony -- who is, given all that she's going through, pretty rational herself. (She is certainly more so than Georgio.) We understand her and root for her, even when her decisions are the wrong ones.

For his part Cassel simply makes his character everything Tony wants -- and more (and finally less), with such sex appeal, charm and often great good humor that there is no question why these two keep trying to make it work. Even when Georgio cannot let go of an old model-gorgeous but unhealthily-clinging girlfriend (Chrystèle Saint Louis Augustin, below, right) who seems constantly in need of his help, Tony tries to look the other way.

How things resolve themselves -- and they do -- proves bittersweet and quite real, leaving us feeling the same caring for both these characters as we've felt all along, watching them change and grow, try and fail, and now maybe even succeed. But in a different configuration.

Thanks to the director, the writers (Maïwenn and Etienne Comar) and the performers, the movie works on all kinds of levels. It will stand the test of time, I suspect, as a simultaneous love story and cautionary tale, a character study, and a look at the way the French well-to-do lived and behaved at a certain point in human history. (Were the film to have dealt with the working class or the poor, I doubt it would have been made.)

From Film Movement and running a long but never boring 124 minutes, My King opens this Friday, August 12, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and in Los Angeles on Friday, August 26, at Laemmle's Royal. Here in South Florida it opens in Miami at the Tower Theater, also on August 26, and in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters on Friday, September 9. Elsewhere? Absolutely. Click here and scroll down to see currently scheduled playdates, arranged alphabetically by state.

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cautionary tales, French cinema, French love stories, Maïwenn, MON ROI, MY KING, the female perspective,

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