“Summer 85”, “Young & Pretty”, “Thanks to God”… Five films by François Ozon, one of the most prolific and fascinating directors of French cinema, can be discovered now on Netflix.
Throughout his career, François Ozon knew how to bring trouble, ambiguity and subversion into bourgeois worlds to better deconstruct – or destroy – their codes.
In 25 years, he has made 22 films – a 23rd is currently in preparation. A frantic pace for a filmmaker who is never short of ideas, thus oscillating between popular successes – this is the case, more recently, of My Crime – and more confidential films.
The Netflix platform puts the director in the spotlight by offering five of his feature films. Five different works, intended for all sensibilities and which tackle, each in their own way, fascinating and sometimes taboo subjects.
There is, to begin with, Dans la maison, a thriller released in 2012 with Fabrice Luchini and Denis Ménochet. This film follows the story of a 16-year-old student who interferes in the family life of a classmate to better find inspiration in his essays.
A great success on its release – more than a million admissions -, Dans la maison highlights a young character whose perversity evokes figures present in the classics of Alfred Hitchcock or Brian de Palma.
The following year, in 2013, François Ozon produced one of his most sulphurous films: Jeune & Jolie. It tells the story of a 17-year-old high school girl who prostitutes herself for older men. Student prostitution is a real subject, but here the director changes the situation because his heroine does not offer her body for financial needs.
The result is a troubled drama carried by Marine Vacth, an actress revealed thanks to this role which hypnotizes the spectators by her mere presence on the screen.
Radical change of style with Frantz, a historical drama released in 2016. Frantz is the name of this soldier who died on the front during the First World War. His fiancée goes to his grave every day and one day crosses paths with a mysterious man named Adrien.
This film, which focuses on secrets and lies in a difficult context, allows Pierre Niney to show a new, darker face. Frantz is a black and white drama, as if it were part of a great tradition of dramas released in the 1940s.
Brilliance in 2019 with Thanks to God. This feature film allows François Ozon to tackle a controversial subject: the silence of the Church in the face of sexual assaults committed on children. For this, the director follows the journey of three survivors, three men, who will fight to make their voices heard.
Shot in secret in Lyon to avoid any intimidation, Thanks to God is a powerful film that opens the debate on a still taboo theme. It allows three actors – Swann Arlaud, Denis Menochet and Melvil Poupaud – to shine with their delicate interpretations shot through with real emotion. Masterpiece.
Finally, Summer 85, released in the summer of 2020, tells the passionate romance between two teenagers during the eighties. François Ozon this time offers a film intended for a younger audience, tackling subjects such as homosexuality, guilt and bereavement.
We inevitably think of Call Me by Your Name, released two years earlier, but also of Éric Rohmer’s cinema. Once again, François Ozon reveals here two young actors: Benjamin Voisin and Félix Lefebvre.