Education… a background theme oftenly found in films but rarely treated independently. There are little films that come to or mind right now to have ‘put the lights’ peculiarly on education (e.g. American History X).
‘The Choices Of Maelys’ by Florent Magnoac approaches this difficult theme by focusing on a temperamental young teenager with personality problems who ran away from home. Florent Magnoac’s character – Maelys – is an archetype of the modern raw teenager with claims for independence and nonconformism, with the intense desire of breaking free from convention, rebelling against society and common sense rules who gets lost in an illusory way of living.
Maelys is under the impression that all the previous generations – an idea condensed in her mother’s character – were wrong about letting themselves ‘guided’ by the system and ‘going with the flow’, a conclusion towards she was probably pushed to because of domestic (family) conflicts. Her difficult personality finds it hard to resign to this. Things have to represent her own choices, because she is a grown up (even if she is only 15) and she wants to be in charge of her life. She wants to be allowed to make decisions on her own refusing any possible teachings from her predecessors or any contribution from their experience. She is ready to build her own ‘experience’ from scratch and due to her stubborn personality she will refuse to learn from her precursor’s mistakes.
Maelys is a biopsy of an entire generation, the new generation of teenagers: stubborn, rebel and uncontrollable. Education – for certain reasons – fails to reach them. The kind of education that guides your thinking and your action, that gives one control over their own self. A major fault of this belongs to the parents – the family environment is what favors the difficult personalities of teenagers. Florent Magnoac doesn’t express it clearly but discretely suggests it.
‘The Choices Of Maelys’ is our 2nd place winner of September but nevertheless with a first class script, a great directorial vision and a professional cinematic treatment.
TMFF RATING:
Share:
