Graduate First (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆

Graduate First (1978) – M. Pialat

This is the first film I’ve watched by Maurice Pialat and perhaps it isn’t the right place to start.  A mostly plot-less but engaging look at a bunch of 19-year-olds finishing their schooling in northern France (a town called Lens).  These kids are largely aimless, living in a depressed economy, without too many options aside from getting married or leaving.  They sleep late, kick around the local café/bar, and sleep with each other.  Pialat largely avoids commentary and the parents who do make an appearance are reasonably easy-going about everything.  A philosophy teacher turns up now and again to offer encouragement and the film’s “message” about having to unlearn everything you already knew (when learning philosophy… but it may apply to becoming an adult too).  The young non-professional actors are mostly interesting and their improvisation seems natural enough -- spending 80 minutes of time with them was fine.  You have to draw your own conclusions about whether these kids are destined for drudgery due to poor choices or whether this is a natural state of affairs for late teens/early twenties youth who nevertheless get their acts together (somehow).  Pialat doesn’t stick around to find out.