Cannes. Private Lessons.

"Starting off as a wickedly seductive comedy about a naive youth and his unusually attentive tutor, only to take on increasingly insidious dimensions, Private Lessons more than confirms the rising talent of 33-year-old Belgian writer-director Joachim Lafosse," writes Justin Chang in Variety.

"Lighter in tone and subject matter than his 2006 dysfunctional-family drama Private Property, but no less incisive in its examination of toxic relational dynamics and the damage that can occur in the absence of boundaries, this is a sly, superbly knowing entertainment."

"Once again, volatile male adolescence and adult irresponsibility react together in a claustrophobic hothouse environment," writes Lee Marshall in Screen Daily. "But here the story of the unhealthy relationship that develops between a sixteen-year-old boy and the thirty-something family friend who agrees to tutor him through his school-leaving exams is less controlled, both visually and structurally; it also feels ethically muddy in its half-fascinated, half-condemnatory portrayal of what in most people's books would count as sexual abuse of a minor."

Vitor Pinto has a bit more at Cineuropa.

Directors' Fortnight.

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Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 08.

Last year: Cannes @ 60. And Cannes 06.

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Posted by dwhudson at June 1, 2008 7:48 AM