In 36 Fillette we follow Lili, an intelligent and contrary teenager. She spends her holiday with her parents on a camp site near Biarritz. To escape the family atmosphere she hates, she goes out a lot. In this way she meets a man: the playboy Maurice, who carelessly drives his BMW trough the resort. He is probably the one who seduces her, but she falls in love with him, even though she suspects he only wants to go to bed with her. She wants this too, but she can’t. Her attitude towards Maurice gets very complicated. She follows him, accuses him, goes to him and then disappears again, gets angry and eventually surrenders to him…The story of Lili is the story of all girls. Her virginity oppresses her; she experiences it as a handicap from which she wants to be liberated. The same time she hesitates, shrinks back from the step towards adulthood. She is filled with impatience, but the transitional ritual also confuses her.36 Fillette is the story of a trajectory and of a test. Lili’s idiosyncracy is moving; she beats off because she’s afraid of a beating and she pretends to know what she wants while she is really looking for herself. (J.D.)
