Les Chatouilles (2018)
Directed by Andréa Bescond, Eric Métayer

Film Review

Professional dancer Andréa Bescond and prolific stage actor-director Éric Métayer give the thorny subject of child abuse a dizzyingly fresh slant in this vibrant adaptation of their Molière-winning stage play, Les Chatouilles ou la Danse de la colère, which was first performed in 2016.  Despite the gravity of the subject matter - paedophilia still remains something of a taboo subject for the cinema - Bescond and Métayer somehow manage to turn this into a good-natured entertainment without ever downplaying the seriousness of the crime to which Bescond was herself subjected in her formative years.

A victim of child abuse in her preteen years, Bescond had an ordeal coping with its traumatic aftermath well into early adulthood, and her experiences provide rich material for a film that not only conveys the monstrous nature of the crime itself but also the harrowing long-term consequences for its victims.  Bescond gets to play her adult self in Les Chatouilles (Little Tickles), and in doing so gives it a resounding authenticity as she lets us in on her miraculous tale of hard-won recovery from the most scarring of personal traumas.  In this she is supported by an exemplary group of performers, who all bring a disturbing sense of reality to the nightmare that befalls one sweet little girl when a wolf in sheep's clothing breaches the security of the family home.

The wolf in question is given a particularly worrying allure when it is portrayed so convincingly by a superlative Pierre Deladonchamps, who has already demonstrated his penchant for ambiguous character portrayals in such films as Alain Guiraudie's L'Inconnu du lac (2013) and Christophe Honoré's Plaire, aimer et courir vite (2018).  We can only flinch in disgust and horror at the apparent ease with which Deladonchamps's character Gilbert - a seemingly ordinary family man - manages to gain access to little Odile and then lures her into games that quickly take a nasty paedophilic turn.  Wisely, the film's authors do not show us the full extent of Gilbert's crimes, but what we do see is enough to turn our stomachs.

What makes Odile's abuse all the more unbearable is that she is forced to endure it herself.  Neither of her parents notice what is happening in their happy little household, both are taken in by the abuser's charm and apparent avuncular generosity.  The blind insouciance of the girl's mother (played by a magnificent Karin Viard) is particularly worrying when set against the child's escalating distress and feeling of helplessness at the hands of a predatory fiend.

The scenes depicting Odile's childhood experiences are the ones that are most expertly handled and leave the greatest impression.  Sequences showing the growing girl's subsequent trauma and attempts to put her abuse behind her are less successfully realised and are not helped by the film's erratic composition, which inter-cuts the dramatic narrative with various contemporary dance interludes and jarringly surreal flights of fancy.

Occasionally, the film gets tangled up in its glaring superfluities and whimsical indulgences, the most notable example of this being some unnecessary scenes with Ariane Ascaride, who is manifestly too starry a performer for the incidental role of Odette's dance instructor.  Although a tad distracting at first, the film's eccentric structure and brazenly weird  mix of intimate drama and light-hearted fun do win you round in the end, although you can't help wondering how much more powerful it might have been had its authors adopted a more conventional and sober approach.

Film Synopsis

Odette is a happy eight-year-old girl whose one dream is to become a successful dancer.  One day, a friend of her parents, Gilbert, a 40-something father of two, persuades her to take part in a seemingly harmless little game in which he begins by tickling her.  Odette knows instinctively something is wrong but she is incapable of raising the matter with her parents, who are in any case too preoccupied with their own concerns.  Gilbert continues abusing Odette, and in doing so he inflicts on her a trauma that will remain with her for the rest of her life.  As she grows up and trains to be a dancer, Odette continues to be haunted by her childhood experiences and wonders if she will ever be rid of the pain that continues to gnaw at her day and night...