©Palace Films http://www.aftermay.com.au
Following the internationally acclaimed Summer Hours and Carlos, celebrated auteur Olivier Assayas delivers arguably his most accomplished work with AFTER MAY (Après mai), a loosely autobiographical and incisive drama about a young French artist caught up in a whirlwind of politics, art and sex in the wake of the electrifying events of May 1968.
It's 1971, and the youth of suburban Paris are still waging the struggle against both a reactionary government and a complacent society, a revolution they believe is just beginning, and their impassioned debates bleed into the streets.
Gilles (newcomer Clément Metayer) is a high school student torn between left-wing activism -- he distributes underground newspapers and spray-paints slogans on the school's walls -- and his aspiration to become a painter or filmmaker. After being left behind by his alluring but non-committal girlfriend Laure (Carole Combes), he meets political firebrand Christine (Goodbye, First Love's Lola Créton) and senses a kindred spirit. When one of their protests goes wrong and draws police attention, Gilles, Christine and their friends decide to escape the city for the summer to Italy. There they live a bohemian life in sun-drenched villas, drifting between parties, rallies and agit-prop film screenings. But, while politics demand centre stage, the group discovers that at their age everything is mutable, every day holds new possibilities, and life awaits the curious...
With this sweeping and evocative story, Assayas with meticulous, living period detail, captures what it was like to have come of age in a generation that was too young to have been on the barricades; he brilliantly depicts its explorations of new lifestyles, morals and influences, and its music, a constant presence that becomes something like the artistic unconscious of an era. Blissfully nostalgic without being at all sentimental, AFTER MAY burns with the tingling passion of youth, when limitless opportunities and uncertainty hold equal sway, and is another must-see from one of world cinema's most vital and influential directors.
