Stupid Boy [Garçon Stupide] *** (2004, Pierre Chatagny, Natacha Koutchoumov, Rui Alves) – Classic Movie Review 12,861

Pierre Chatagny stars in Swiss film-maker Lionel Baier’s unsettling 2004 coming-of-age drama film Stupid Boy [Garçon Stupide] as a young man called Loïc, who takes a troubled path towards realising who he really is and finally what he will never do. 

Pierre Chatagny stars in Swiss co-writer/ director Lionel Baier’s eerie 2004 coming-of-age drama Stupid Boy [Garçon Stupide] as a young man of 20 called Loïc, who takes a troubled path towards realising who he really is and finally what he will never do. Like the boy’s progress through life, the film represents an interesting challenge, a bit of a wake-up call.

[Spoiler alert] Loic is bored to death with his mundane life as a worker in a chocolate factory, and cruises in the internet by night to meet up and have sex with older men. He refuses to commit to any relationship, but his meaningless life and vacuous ways of thinking are turned upside down by a series of events that notably include his friendship with a man called Lionel who is interested in him not just for his body, the stalking of a popular local Portuguese soccer player (Rui Alves), and the alienation and suicide of his nice, increasingly uncomprehending best friend Marie (Natacha Koutchoumov), who works in a museum.

Lionel is unseen in the film, but played vocally (uncredited) by director Lionel Baier, chatting away merrily and wisely to the hero as they hook up regularly. Both Marie and Lionel are going to challenge Loïc and his stupid ideas directly, and act as catalysts in his young so far pointless life. It is a very severe version of coming-of-age story, quite austere and confrontational.

Loïc is not actually stupid, just under-educated and uninformed, but he’s curious, so that will change. It’s lucky though that he is good looking, as nobody would be interested in him in the first place, as, well, he isn’t interesting, initially that is. It’s luckier still that he has a brain hidden under his pretty face.

Stupid Boy is an interesting, definitely different, very odd, quite challenging, weirdly compelling coming-of-age drama. The film makes the most of its main actor playing the troubled but determined young man. There are some very frank, explicit 18+ scenes in the unshockable European style. It is so not a comedy, so not a romance, so not your usual coming-of-age drama, though there are aspects of all three. You never really know quite where you are in the story, if it is a story, and if what you are seeing is meant to be real or fantasy. Many will find this film frustrating, some might find it fascinating,

Stupid Boy is shot in Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, making a thoroughly attractive, actually exciting background.

Release date: March 10, 2004.

Countries of origin Switzerland, France.

Runtime 94 minutes.

Pierre Chatagny was originally looking for work on the film’s crew, when director Lionel Baier asked him to read for the part of Loïc.

This is all you need to know:

Loïc declares: ‘I don’t know what I will be but I know what I won’t be. I won’t be anti-globalisation, nor march with the masses, nor cry “Kill Them”, nor be a cop, nor sell out, nor be a hooligan, nor neutral, nor reasonable, nor a militant, nor a collaborator. I won’t fuck everyone, nor create a family, sell ass, buy ass, have kids, fear the dark, love the dark, be a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, not believe in people, be like everyone, transparent, absent, not look women straight in the eye, fuck men rather than speak with them, fuck everyone to avoid loving anyone. I want to tell stories, Marie, my own stories. And no one will know if they are real or fantasy. I don’t want to be a stupid boy. I am not a stupid boy.’

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,861

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