‘Red Rocks’ review: Bruno Dumont’s ‘French Riviera Kids Flick’ is a simple, mostly adult drama

You can call French auteur Bruno Dumont many things: profound, pretentious, visionary, a master of rural poverty porn, a rebel against the iconography of contemporary art cinema, an over-the-top bore. The only thing you can’t call it unoriginal.

Each Dumont film is a new experience, sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating, and often both at once. His previous advantage EmpireIt was, of all things, a star wars The parody is filled with sex, biting humor and tons of CGI, including a Gothic cathedral turned into a spaceship. A few people end up seeing it, but those who do are unlikely to forget it (that is, if they stay until the end).

His latest effort Red rocks (Les Roches lipstick), is about to be far from it Empire As you can get it. Stripped down to the point of pure simplicity, it is a docudrama starring a group of children aged between five and seven. image Rebellion without a cause With only threadbare plots, and a cast that’s probably just learning how to read, and you get a vague idea.

As with every Dumont project, this one is stunningly shot (by director Carlos Alfonso Corral, The cursed one), where the events take place amidst the picturesque scenery of the Côte d’Azur, where the gang spends its summer days. With a preference for short lenses and natural light, the film’s impressive aesthetic is perhaps its biggest selling point.

Otherwise what happens in Red rocks Not exactly Sesame Street material, though Dumont thankfully avoids having his children put up with the kinds of stuff you see in some of his other films, which tend to include atrocities like rape and mutilation. Here, the young heroes roam, trick and break some rules, like jumping off a series of dazzling natural cliffs that line the Mediterranean Sea.

The leader of this expensive sand district is Geo (Kaylon Lancel), a mischievous blond kid who rides around on his scooter as if he rules the place. Not unlike the 1997 Dumont breakout champion, The life of JesusGio is a badass who says very little – although this may be due to the fact that he is five years old. along with com.gaminsRobin (Mohamed Kohli) and Manon (Louise Podolsky), a crime scene, are enjoying the sunny atmosphere of the south of France when he meets a new girl his own age, Eve (Kelsey Verdel).

From there, Red rocks It turns into a puppy love story told through Dumont’s typically distanced approach, which doesn’t exactly engage the viewer. Once the novelty of seeing cute kids acting out an adult drama wears off, the film can feel pretty weak, even if it benefits from some of the offbeat humor of the director’s great TV series, Lil Quinquin.

The comedic tone is particularly on display in a long sequence in which Géo and Eve skip town to take a train across the border to Italy, where the latter visits her grandparents in a seaside mansion. Suddenly we watch an old man taking tennis lessons while a trio of Russian hounds leap around the court snatching balls away. Who knows what this has to do with the rest of the movie, but at least it’s fun.

As in any tragic love story, our underage hero eventually finds himself threatened by a jealous rival, B (Alessandro Becerra), who is taller than Gio and perhaps a year or two older than him. The two cross paths during a big beachside showdown that features some of the raw violence that Dumont is known for, though it’s much less serious and ultimately fairly harmless.

Despite the late bloodshed, Red rocks It doesn’t go as far as the author’s other films, which is certainly a good thing. Géo and his buddies are so adorable, it’s highly unlikely their parents would let them be tortured on screen. Or perhaps Dumont, who won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1999 for his brutal realistic drama, HumanityFinally softens with age. What he does not do – and this is a good thing – is that he loses his superiority.