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Last year, Film Comment magazine proclaimed Maurice Pialat "the most important French filmmaker since Robert Bresson." Some of that praise might be due to the fact that Pialat had died just the year before, but as my friend Garth asked at the time, "How can I not be familiar with the most important French director of the last 25 years?" Blame it on the vagaries of film distributors. Few of Pialat's movies have received any kind of distribution, and the circle of cinematheques around the U.S. hasn't seen fit to mount any sort of retrospective. Until now. Beginning this Friday and continuing for twelve days, Facets Cinematheque is presenting eleven of his films, most in beautiful new prints.

Maybe the best place to start is with Pialat's first feature, Naked Childhood (Apr. 22 & 26). Francois (played by Michel Terrazon, who also shows up in A House in the Woods) is a foster child who veers between moments of great kindness (he takes the small amount of money he has and buys his foster mother a scarf) and periods of awful brutality (he drops a cat down several flights of stairs). His first foster parents can't deal with him, so he's sent off to an older couple. Our first impression is that this elderly pair is no match for this young boy, and maybe they're not, but their combination of obvious love and stark discipline (I refuse to invoke the miserable cliche "tough love") has a moderating effect on Francois. Unlike a more traditional film, however, Francois doesn't turn into an angel overnight. Pialat is too much of a realist for that.

That realism makes many of Pialat's films difficult for a contemporary audience. There's no cushion of sentiment, no promise of a happy ending. Pialat's realism extends to how he constructs his stories. He refuses to buy into the three-act structure that even arthouse directors fall back on. Characters don't slowly progress from chaos to order, from bad to good on some natural, evolutionary path. Rather, they take a step forward then three steps sideways. Francois shares a delightful moment with his foster parents and in the next scene throws a knife at his foster brother. It's disorienting at first, but you grow accustomed to Pialat's rhythms, realizing that this approach is a closer barometer of real life than we usually see in the movies.

This is especially true in my favorite Pialat film, Graduate First (Apr. 25 & 28). A portrait of a group of 19-year-olds struggling to find an identity, the film follows them during a frustrating but crucial year. They pair up, skip classes, argue with their parents, go on holiday to the beach. At every turn, they confront the question of what they're going to do. One young woman thinks she'll get married just so she can get out of her parents' house; two young men plan to move to Paris, though what they'll do there is entirely unclear. Pialat has a great way with young actors, and his objective cinematography captures their conversations in compelling long takes.

This theme of the future is a part of any coming-of-age tale, but it's a particular obsession of Pialat's. Adults are forever asking the children in his films, "What'll you do [when you grow up]?" and every punishment comes with the warning that the present course will lead to a horrible adult life. That's even true in We Will Not Grow Old Together (Apr. 22 & 26), a film about a break-up between two lovers. There, the middle-aged man (an obvious stand-in for Pialat himself) excoriates his younger lover by mocking her dreams of being a fashion model: "You've never succeeded at anything and you never will. And do you know why? Because you are vulgar, irremediably vulgar, and not only are you vulgar, you are ordinary." But it's the man who's failing in life, the man whose earlier choices are restricting his future possibilities.

Even if Pialat's characters had made better choices, though, it's not entirely clear if they'd be better off. Few of the adults in his films appear terribly happy. One teenager in Graduate First mocks his mother by asking if there's more to life than working, eating, sleeping, and maybe catching a movie on Saturday night if you can find a babysitter. Naked Childhood opens with a parade of glum-looking workers demanding better jobs and more pay. By situating his stories within the larger social setting, Pialat deals with both the personal and the social, showing how personal choices are often constrained by social authorities.

Yet, Pialat's movies don't descend into fatalism. There's a wonderful scene in Naked Childhood where the older foster parents describe their love for each other and their children. Graduate First features joking, dancing, and flirting with as much happiness as there is sadness in the bleaker moments. Even We Will Not Grow Old Together, a film made more difficult by its unappealing characters, the pain of breaking up is understood only because of the joy there is in the relationship itself. And in A House in the Woods, the specter of World War I looms, but the characters can enjoy a meal or the pangs of first love.

I wish I could more heartily recommend that you sit through the six-hour A House in the Woods (part 1, Apr. 24; part 2, May 1), as it makes for a fascinating companion piece to Best of Youth. Furthermore, the French mini-series (made for French television and shown here in high-quality projected video) has many wonderful qualities. Its portrait of French village life during World War I is lovingly detailed, and its cast is uniformly excellent. Pierre Doris as the papa is especially great, and Pialat coaxes some wonderfully natural performances from a trio of young boys. The series was heavily improvised--Pialat was a director-for-hire and didn't care for the script--which leads to hilarious interactions among the children and gorgeous set pieces. An idyllic picnic along the river is magical. But that improvisational feel also dilutes the story. The narrative has so many dead and loose ends that all but the most generous viewer will start to wonder where the series is going. And its leap to Paris for the final episode is unfortunately pointless and loses the charm Pialat had developed.

I haven't seen Pialat's later films, but I've heard marvelous things about Van Gogh (May 1 & 2) and To Our Loves (Apr. 27). I encourage you to take a chance on Pialat. The rewards are rich.

J. Robert Parks   4/22/2005