Pialat does it again

He achieves a film that feels natural in the choreography and dialogue of its characters. The film is shot in bright light with lost of pastel colours and soft hues but its tone is bleak. Those young people who opt to stay in Lens are doomed to repeat the small lives of their parents, which are marked by marriage, children, affairs and weddings. All familiar and comfortable but unsatisfying and unhappy. Bernard and Philippe offer the possibility of something more as they opt to travel to Paris and embark on a lesser known future. The parents care but do not understand the struggle their children have in settling into the established village life. One parent asks her son what more could he want in life than the one she and others have in Lens.

Pialat begins and ends his film with a philosophy teacher asking his students to abandon preconceived ideas as they begin their philosophy studies. Is this address to us the audience or the film's characters? It seems lost on the characters but might not be lost on us.

A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.