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= Portrait d’une juene fille de la fin des années 60 á Bruxelles (Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60’s in Brussels) =

Portrait d’une juene fille de la fin des années 60 á Bruxelles (Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60’s in Brussels) is a 1993 television film by Belgian feminist and avant-garde filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story with feminist and LGBT themes.

The film was created for Arte's nine-part series Tous les garcons et les filles de leur âge (All the Boys and Girls of Their Age). The series, which belongs to le jeune cinéma français (the Young French Cinema) movement of the 1990's, was described as "'enormously influential" by the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine.

Plot
The film follows 15-year old Michelle (Circe Lethem), her best friend Danielle (Joelle Marlier), and the army deserter Paul (Julien Rassam) as they wander the streets of Brussels in April 1968, discussing love, sexuality, politics and philosophy.

Cast

 * Circe Lethem as Michelle
 * Joelle Marlier as Danielle
 * Julien Rassam as Paul
 * Cynthia Rodberg as Mireille

Production
Portrait d'une juene fille was one of nine films commissioned by Arte for its series Tous les garcons et les filles de leur âge. The series also includes works by André Téchiné, Olivier Assayas and Claire Denis. Certain elements were required of all the films in the series: adolescence as a subject matter, the inclusion of songs popular in the filmmakers' youth, and a party scene. The films are autobiographical or semi-autobiographical in nature. Feminist film scholar Patricia White suggests that protagonist Michelle is a stand-in of-sorts for Akerman, noting that Circe Lethem physically resembles a young Akerman "in stance and presence."

Music
Portrait d'une juene fille makes prominent use of diegetic music, with the songs of the 60's featuring in multiple dance and party scenes. Songs featured in Portrait d'une juene fille include:


 * Suzanne, written and performed by Leonard Cohen
 * It's a Man's Man's Man's World, written and performed by James Brown
 * La Bamba (song), performed by Trini Lopez
 * Noir, C'est Noir, performed by Johnny Hallyday

Anachronisms
The film is set around thirty years in the past but, according to Variety critic David Rooney, "thumbs [its] nose at period authenticity." Many features of the film's setting are obviously anachronistic, like modern cars on the streets of Brussels and a contemporary CD store. New Yorker critic Richard Brody states that these anachronisms "mark the contemporary world with the buried feelings of [Akerman's] youth, as if to prove Faulkner's dictum, 'The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.' ' French cinema scholar Nicoleta Bazgan has also commented that the film's refusal of period authenticity has thematic resonances, stating that it has the effect of is destabilising "dichotomies such as private and public, authentic and clichèd, past and present."

Relationship to French New Wave
Nicoleta Bazgan states that Portrait d'une juene fille exists in "direct conversation" with the French New Wave cinematic movement of the 1950's and 60's. Both the film's settings - "record stores, bookstores, cafes and restaurants" - and cinematic style - the "use of authentic urban settings without any extras and iconic jump cuts" - are reminiscent of New Wave films. However, Bazgan also sees the film's emphasis upon its young heroine's emotional fragility and subjectivity as a departure from or rebuke to the New Wave, whose (typically male) protagonists are cool, dispassionate and detached. According to Bazgan, by  emphasising ... the haptic and emotional quality of [Michelle's] journey, and the focus on emphatic connection, Akerman deviates, in a fundamental way, from the aesthetic codes of the New Wave she is revisiting." Similarly, feminist film scholar Patricia White states that Portrait d'une juene fille'' "rewrites the major language" of the French New Wave. The film's setting, Brussels, April 1968, calls to mind the Paris, May 68 worker-student strikes, which "function as a mythical origin story in the narratives of the new left, Post-structuralist theory and film culture." By "virtue of being not quite Paris, not yet May," White writes, Akerman's film suggests that its story is "not given meaning by the heroic (male) politics that would require historical authenticity."

Critical Reception and Legacy
At the time of its release, David Rooney of Variety called the film a work "of surprising subtlety, intimacy and economy" and praised the actors performances. Circe Lethem's Michelle, he stated, is played with "effortless precision," her "youthful coolness" balanced "with unstoppable sincerity and a melancholy undertow," and Paul is played by Julien Rassam with a "generous share of sympathy and sensitivity." Similarly, Richard Brody of The New Yorker praised the film, stating that its final scene "'searingly recalls the mingled ecstasies and bewilderments of youth, the sudden chill of loneliness in a crowd that is the curse and the pride of a sensitive, yearning soul." Portrait d'une juene fille has also been revisited at international film festivals and retrospectives. It was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 2008 and Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. In response to the screening at the Museum of Modern Art, Dave McDougall wrote for Mubi that the film "moves beyond being one of the great coming-of-age films; it is simply one of the great films. A moving, multifaceted, and magical hour, presented with honesty and subtle artistry."

Category:French films Category:French television films