Confidences pour confidences (1979)
Directed by Pascal Thomas

Film Review

Pascal Thomas's filmmaking career got off to a flying start with a trilogy of portraits of adolescence that is considered some of his best work - Les Zozos (1973), Pleure pas la bouche pleine (1973) and Le Chaud lapin (1974).  His later film Confidences pour confidences is a continuation of this series of films, a similarly intimate portrait of family life that is as authentic as it is engaging.  Banal incident takes up most of the film's run time, but Thomas's distinctive approach - gentle humour tinged with melancholy - makes it one of his warmest and most satisfying films.

There are some distinguished actors in the supporting cast - Jacques Villeret, Michel Galabru, Bernard Menez - and Daniel Ceccaldi finds himself in a made-to-measure role, but it is the enchanting ingénue Anne Caudry who steals most of our attention, captivating in her first screen role.  Thirteen years later, Caudry would be cut off in her prime, one of the first women in France to die from AIDS.  This fact adds a bitter poignancy to Confidences pour confidences, the film that launched her on her short but impressive screen career.

Film Synopsis

Recalling the story of her family, Brigitte takes us back to the 1950s, when she was living an idyllic life with her sisters Pierrette and Florence, and parents, the owners of a grocers' shop.  Suffering from anaemia, Brigitte has to stay with her grandparents in the country whilst the rest of her family moves to Paris.  After the death of her grandmother, Brigitte rejoins her family in Paris and is struck by how much her sisters have changed.  Ten years later, Pierrette is married, Florence works in the cinema and Brigitte survives on odd jobs before meeting François.  Discovering she is pregnant, Brigitte chooses not to marry François, and after a miscarriage she leaves her family to work with Dora, a friend...