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Screening at Cannes: Marine Atlan’s ‘La Gradiva’

On a class trip to Pompeii, the fears and follies of youth become split by a prism of death.

Coming-of-age clashes with oblivion in La Gradiva, a story of French highschoolers visiting the ruins of Pompeii. The Cannes Critics’ Week selection (and Grand Prix winner) marks the feature debut of director/co-writer Marine Atlan, who crafts an enormously affecting tale of volatile youths—played by incredible non-professionals—and their most thorny self-discoveries.

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The film is one of homespun naturalism, but Atlan also exhibits immense formal control. The sun streams gently through train compartment windows in an early scene, as young hotshot James (Mitia Capellier-Audat) has sex with Angela (Hadya Fofana), a girl in his class. This hormonally-charged introduction is one of the few moments La Gradiva affords its characters such an up-close intimacy. Before long, it pulls back to reveal the young lovers are being watched by curious onlooker Toni (Colas Quignard), their outwardly masculine queer classmate, who ends up taken with James, but whose dynamic with him grows more curious and complex during their academic pilgrimage. Atlan’s camera, for the most part, mirrors Toni’s feelings of remove by embodying an observational, fly-on-the-wall approach to capturing soulful teenage abandon.

The Italian summer sun........

© Observer