TRAVOLTA AND ME
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1995 James Berardinelli
(Part of the Series ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS IN THEIR TIME) RATING (0 TO 10): 6.8
Shown at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema Running Length: 1:09 MPAA Classification: Not Rated (Mature themes, sex, nudity)
Cast: Leslie Azzoulai, Julien Guerin, Helene Eichers, Thomas Klotz,
Igor Tchiniaev
Director: Patricia Mazuy
Screenplay: Patricia Mazuy and Yves Thomas
Cinematography: Eric Gautier
Distribution unknown
In French with subtitles
ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS IN THEIR TIME is a series of films commissioned by the French-German TV station Arte. Ten directors were asked to participate by making a movie about their teenage years. Each film had to include at least one party scene which highlighted the music of the time. TRAVOLTA AND ME, Patricia Mazuy's entry, transpires in 1978 and (not surprisingly, given the title) takes its inspiration from U.S. disco and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.
For those of my generation, TRAVOLTA AND ME holds a strong nostalgic component. Beyond that, this is a nice period piece that has limited success muddling its way through the teenage angst engendered by a first love. The main character, Christine, is wildly infatuated with American actor John Travolta until she meets real life heartthrob Nicolas. While the boy sees Christine as just another potential conquest (and an opportunity to win a bet with his friends), she falls head-over-heels for him. What follows starts out as a pleasant examination of coping with youthful passion and the pressure to have sex, but ends in a wildly over-the-top look at what many teenagers wish they could do.
In its restrained moments, TRAVOLTA AND ME is an effective, often- moving look at one girl's struggles with the conflicting desires created by the approach of adulthood. When the story is focused, it works. However, things become unbalanced near the end as Mazuy permits all sorts of strange and unbelievable events to take place. These lend an unreal aura to the final twenty minutes that distances us from characters we're still getting to know, dulling the impact of the concluding sequence and dampening an otherwise fine character study.
- James Berardinelli (jberardinell@delphi.com)
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