The title of GENÈSE (Genesis)—writer and director Philippe Lesage’s beautifully considered take on the adolescent trials of a pair of Quebecois siblings—reminds us that the depredations of youth are part of a process and not (despite on-screen evidence to the contrary) an irrevocable fall.
For most of its running time, GENÈSE (Lesage’s second feature) details, with intelligence and plausibility, the social-sexual explorations of Charlotte (Noée Abita)—an uncommitted college student—and her slightly younger brother Guillaume (Théodore Pellerin, Boy Erased), who is enrolled in an all-male boarding school.
A third-act coda revisits characters from Lesage’s first feature, Les Démons. Perhaps, in an upcoming film, Lesage will return to where the filmmaker and his deeply invested audience leave Charlotte and Guillaume, simultaneously stranded yet irresistibly propelled into the unknown.
This World Cinema selection premieres in Hollywood this evening as part of AFI Fest 2018, with an encore screening tomorrow.
Monday, November 12, at 5:45 pm, with director Philippe Lesage in attendance.
Tuesday, November 13, at 6:30 pm.
Chinese Theatre
6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Philippe Lesage, Genèse, from top: Théodore Pellerin and Noée Abita; image credit Be For Films; Pellerin (seated center), photograph by Marco Abraham. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker, the actors, and Be For Films.