Feasts the eyes, leaving the mind hungry......

The greatest things to watch for in this film are cinematography and acting. Claire Denis has a way with children, as wonderfully demonstrated in "Chocolat"; she cajoled some fine performance from the teenage leads. Then the cinematography: Denis's camera is among the most sensual in contemporary cinema; it slowly caresses the grains and texture of a girl's face, a stucco wall, a bakery counter, and the contour of a shuttered window, etc, with attentive. loving care. And all this is done in the kind of light you find on a glorious sunny afternoon in winter, when everything basks in sunlight and presents unsuspected shades and details.

Ths story-line is sketchy and incoherent. To the end of the film I don't understand why there are so many scenes lavished on Boni's sexual fantasy over the baker's wife: what purpose does this subject serve to the film as a whole? And I find the incest innuendo half-hearted, not getting the right idrectorial attention in terms the degree of devastation it visited on Nennette. If the heartaches and misery are all merely excuses for us to enjoy ghetto-verite voyeuristic camerawork, well, shame on us.