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Cocktail Molotov
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Wikipedia article
'Cocktail Molotov' is a 1980 French drama film written and directed by Diane Kurys. It is her second feature after 'Peppermint Soda'. A female coming of age story set during the spring and summer of 1968, the film is not a sequel but can be considered "companion piece" to its predecessor.Tarr 1999, p. 39. It has been called a female take on the male-dominated road movie genre.Tarr 1999, p. 53.
Plot
Seventeen-year-old middle-class Anne (Elise Caron), runs away with her working-class boyfriend Frederic (Philippe Lebas) and his friend Bruno (Francois Cluzet) after a violent fight with her mother.Foster 1995, p. 211. Anne convinces the others to drive to Venice, where she plans to take a ship to Israel in order to join a kibbutz. On the road, Anne grapples with experiences of love, sex, abortion, and "existential wandering".Foster 1995, p. 211. Upon reaching Venice, they learn of the social uprising back in Paris. With their money running out and their car stolen, they hitchhike back to find they have missed the excitement.Canby 1981.
Reception
'Cocktail Molotov' did not do as well as 'Peppermint Soda', Kurys' critically acclaimed first feature released three years earlier.Tarr 1999, pp. 40, 150.Tarr 2002, p. 223. Film studies scholar Carrie Tarr has written that audiences may have been confused by Kurys treatment of May '68 as nearly devoid of protest and politics, instead focusing on an explicitly female personal drama, as opposed to the generally male-centered view of the student revolts. She also notes that Kurys had had to rewrite the script due to budget constraints which made reenacting the barricading of Paris streets impossible, and further cut explicitly political scenes out in the editing process to further emphasize the teenagers' story.Tarr 1999, pp. 3940. Perhaps in a reaction to its lack of political content, Vincent Canby's 1981 review in the 'New York Times' called the film "a nearly perfect example of the kind of French film that apotheosizes middle-class values while pretending to question them".Canby 1981. While Tarr writes that the film does not depict abortion, love triangles, or the subjectivity of the female central character as well as other films,Tarr 1999, p. 54. its autobiographical elements, its pairing of personal narrative with larger, historical eventsTarr 1999, p. 45. and other connections with the rest of Kurys' filmography mark it as an essential part of her work as auteur.Tarr 1999, p. 143
Cast
* Elise Caron as Anne
* Philippe Lebas as Frederic
* Francois Cluzet as Bruno
* Genevieve Fontanel as Anne's mother
* Henri Garcin as Anne's Stepfather
* Michel Puterflam as Anne's Father
* Jenny Cleve as Frederic's Mother
* Armando Brancia as Frederic's Father
* Malene Sveinbjornsson as Anne's Little Sister
* Stefania Cassini as Anna-Maria
* Frederique Meininger as Doctor
* Patrick Chesnais as Trucker
* Hlne Vincent as The diplomat's wife
Notes
References
*
* Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. 'Women Film Directors: an International Bio-critical Dictionary'. Greenwood Press, Westport, 1995.
* Tarr, Carrie. 'Diane Kurys'. Manchester University Press, New York, 1999.
* Tarr, Carrie.'Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers' ed. by Yvonne Tasker. Rutledge, New York, 2002.
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