J'embrasse pas
Encyclopedia
I Don't Kiss is a 1991 French drama film directed by André Téchiné
, starring Manuel Blanc
, Emmanuelle Béart
and Philippe Noiret
. The film is a grim, melancholic portrait of a young man searching and failing to find meaning in his life. The film had a total of 472,187 admissions in France.
A colleague at work, Said, takes him to dinner with two middle-aged men: they are both gay. The cellist, Dimitri, is Said’s lover, and the intellectual television personality, Romain, is fascinated by Pierre but insists his interest is platonic. Pierre is disgusted by the evening and when Romain gives him a ride home and stops in a park that is a pick up point for hustlers, he walks off in a huff, refusing to get back into Romain's car. Evelyne takes Pierre to an expensive restaurant to make up for her earlier indifference. They return to her house and spend the night together. She offers him free accommodation, he moves in and they start an affair.
Pierre begins to attend acting classes but shows little talent. When he has to prepare for "Hamlet", he recites the role with no feelings and even forgets his lines. Humiliated, he flees in abandonment from his tentative ambition to become an actor.
His relationship with Evelyne also comes to an abrupt end. She feels that he does not really love her and breaks away from him. When she leaves him some money, Pierre feels insulted, returns the money, and leaves the place she had offered him. He goes absent from work pleading illness and eventually loses his job. Homeless and forced to sleep on the streets, he falls victim to thieves who steal all his belongings. Now broke and homeless, Pierre returns to the park where Romain took him in, and sees him again. Pierre’s offer of sexual favors is refused, but Romain takes him on a trip to Spain. In Seville, the older man takes someone else as a lover and Pierre returns to Paris.
With no job or home, Pierre has to adopt prostitution as his only way to make money. He makes his rules very clear to prospective male clients: "I don't kiss, I don't suck, I don't get fucked". Despite his initial aversion to sex with men, Pierre manages to make a success of his new career. During a police crackdown on streetwalkers, he meets Ingrid, another prostitute. He becomes infatuated with Ingrid, whose dream had been to become a singer. Both are arrested and after a night in jail, they spend an idyllic day together. They make love, but their liaison is discovered by her pimp, who with his gang beats up and rapes Pierre, forcing Ingrid to watch.
Pierre leaves Paris and joins the paratroops; he voices to an interviewing officer a desire for revenge, and also for the "leap into the void" involved in parachuting at night. On a visit home, he tells his brother that he didn’t hate the city, he just wasn’t ready for it. On release from his service, and about to leave once again for Paris and an open future, Pierre stops off at the beach, takes his clothes off and wanders into the sea.
July 22, 2008 in the U.S.A. as part of a Boxset of Téchiné's films. The film is in French
with English
and Spanish
subtitles. I Don't Kiss is also available in Region 2 DVD.
André Téchiné
André Téchiné , is a French screenwriter and film director. He has had a long and distinguished career that places him among the best post-New Wave French film directors....
, starring Manuel Blanc
Manuel Blanc
Manuel Blanc is a French television and film actor.-Selected filmography:* I Don't Kiss * La Rivière Espérance * Beaumarchais * Exit * Two * Vivante * Mes parents...
, Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
and Philippe Noiret
Philippe Noiret
Philippe Noiret was a French film actor.-Biography:Noiret's father was in the clothes trade. Philippe was an indifferent scholar and attended several prestigious Paris schools, including the Lycée Janson de Sailly. He failed several times to pass his baccalauréat exams, so he decided to study...
. The film is a grim, melancholic portrait of a young man searching and failing to find meaning in his life. The film had a total of 472,187 admissions in France.
Plot
Pierre, an idealistic twenty-year-old man, leaves his home in a remote district of the Pyrenees to travel to Paris, hoping to break away from his restrictive provincial life. Arriving in the French capital, he turns to the only person he knows in the city, Evelyne, a middle aged nurse, whom he had briefly met when working as a stretcher-bearer at Lourdes. She is vague and distracted, being preoccupied by the paralyzed mother with whom she lives. Nevertheless, she manages to get Pierre a job as a hospital orderly. He finds somewhere to stay and, in order to fulfill his childhood dream, buys a book on how to become an actor.A colleague at work, Said, takes him to dinner with two middle-aged men: they are both gay. The cellist, Dimitri, is Said’s lover, and the intellectual television personality, Romain, is fascinated by Pierre but insists his interest is platonic. Pierre is disgusted by the evening and when Romain gives him a ride home and stops in a park that is a pick up point for hustlers, he walks off in a huff, refusing to get back into Romain's car. Evelyne takes Pierre to an expensive restaurant to make up for her earlier indifference. They return to her house and spend the night together. She offers him free accommodation, he moves in and they start an affair.
Pierre begins to attend acting classes but shows little talent. When he has to prepare for "Hamlet", he recites the role with no feelings and even forgets his lines. Humiliated, he flees in abandonment from his tentative ambition to become an actor.
His relationship with Evelyne also comes to an abrupt end. She feels that he does not really love her and breaks away from him. When she leaves him some money, Pierre feels insulted, returns the money, and leaves the place she had offered him. He goes absent from work pleading illness and eventually loses his job. Homeless and forced to sleep on the streets, he falls victim to thieves who steal all his belongings. Now broke and homeless, Pierre returns to the park where Romain took him in, and sees him again. Pierre’s offer of sexual favors is refused, but Romain takes him on a trip to Spain. In Seville, the older man takes someone else as a lover and Pierre returns to Paris.
With no job or home, Pierre has to adopt prostitution as his only way to make money. He makes his rules very clear to prospective male clients: "I don't kiss, I don't suck, I don't get fucked". Despite his initial aversion to sex with men, Pierre manages to make a success of his new career. During a police crackdown on streetwalkers, he meets Ingrid, another prostitute. He becomes infatuated with Ingrid, whose dream had been to become a singer. Both are arrested and after a night in jail, they spend an idyllic day together. They make love, but their liaison is discovered by her pimp, who with his gang beats up and rapes Pierre, forcing Ingrid to watch.
Pierre leaves Paris and joins the paratroops; he voices to an interviewing officer a desire for revenge, and also for the "leap into the void" involved in parachuting at night. On a visit home, he tells his brother that he didn’t hate the city, he just wasn’t ready for it. On release from his service, and about to leave once again for Paris and an open future, Pierre stops off at the beach, takes his clothes off and wanders into the sea.
Cast
- Manuel BlancManuel BlancManuel Blanc is a French television and film actor.-Selected filmography:* I Don't Kiss * La Rivière Espérance * Beaumarchais * Exit * Two * Vivante * Mes parents...
as Pierre - Philippe NoiretPhilippe NoiretPhilippe Noiret was a French film actor.-Biography:Noiret's father was in the clothes trade. Philippe was an indifferent scholar and attended several prestigious Paris schools, including the Lycée Janson de Sailly. He failed several times to pass his baccalauréat exams, so he decided to study...
as Romain - Emmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
as Ingrid - Hélène VincentHélène VincentHélène Vincent, born 9 September 1943, is a French actress.She received a César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1989 for her role as Madame Marielle Le Quesnoy in Life Is a Long Quiet River and another in 1992 for J'embrasse pas....
as Evelyne - Ivan DesnyIvan DesnyIvan Nikolai Desnitskij was a Russian actor born in China who worked for most of his life in Germany.-Career:Desny was a film/movie actor. He acted in more than 150 films, most of them German...
as Dimitri - Christophe Bernard as Le Mac
- Roschdy ZemRoschdy ZemRoschdy Zem is a French actor of Moroccan descent. He shared the award for Best Actor for his role in the film "Days of Glory" at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival....
as Saïd
Analysis
The film is a bleak, melancholic portrait of a young man searching and failing to find meaning in his life. The film’s fragmented narrative structure and uneven rhythm added to the sense of insecurity experienced by the central character. At the same time, the moody photography – particularly the intense nocturnal scenes – lend an atmosphere of cruel oppression and dark poetry, recurring motifs in Téchiné’s appealing style of cinema.Production
Téchiné’s ninth feature was filmed after a four-year gap since he made his previous film. I Don't Kiss was based on a story by Téchiné ’s collaborator Jacques Nolot, with dialogue by Téchiné, Nolot, and the writer Michel Grisolia.DVD release
The film was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
July 22, 2008 in the U.S.A. as part of a Boxset of Téchiné's films. The film is in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
subtitles. I Don't Kiss is also available in Region 2 DVD.