Christophe Malavoy | La ville dont le prince est un enfant (The Fire That Burns) / 1997 [TV movie]

who gets to love?

by Douglas Messerli

 

Didier Decoin (teleplay, based on the play by Henry De Montherlant), Christophe Malavoy (director) La ville dont le prince est un enfant (The Fire That Burns) / 1997 [TV movie]

 

It is nearly impossible to imagine discussing Christophe Malavoy’s excellent French television film of 1997, The Fire That Burns, without investigating it in relationship to Jean Delannoy’s 1964 film, Les Amities Particulieres, based on a novel by Roger Peyrefitte. Both works are about young love between boys in strict Catholic schools before World War II, the relationship between the older and younger boy not only attracting the full attention of the priests and abbots within the institution, but the boys themselves being of prurient interest to their superiors.

      Peyrefitte and De Montherlant, to put it straight-forwardly, are the two most recognized and admired literary pedophiles of French culture. No one could even imagine that either of these writers might be permitted to publish such works as they did in the US, let alone win awards and prestige for their writings and, finally, have these two important films adapted from their works.

     De Montherlant (1895-1972) was basically a closeted pedophile with highly conservative and misogynistic values (Simone de Beauvoir used him as an example of such values, quoting from his fiction The Girls in he The Second Sex), although his involvement with Algerian street boys had been well documented; Peyrefitte (1907-2000) was quite openly a pedophile, falling in love with a boy who played a small role in Les Amities Particulieres, the two involved in a long-term relationship about which he wrote a book. Soon after Peyrefitte’s death in 2000, moreover, the young man apparently killed himself, the two having made a pact that the one would kill himself upon the death of the other. Peyrefitte, unlike De Montherlant, although also politically conservative, openly supported gay causes, and virtually outed De Monterlant, mocking him until that writer’s own suicide in 1972 by exposing him as being involved in all sorts of pederastic situations, including an incident wherein several toughs severely beat him at age 72 for having groped one of their friends, delimiting his eyesight,.

      The very fact that these two works, accordingly, are so similar in their subject matter and themes—the battle within Catholicism between spiritual love and that of the flesh—almost demands that we compare them. I going to try to resist making an extensive comparison other than stating that in both these films, the private and presumably innocent love shared by these boys was intentionally destroyed by interested Church superiors. In Les Amities Particulieres, moreover, it ended in the suicide of the younger boy; and although in the De Montherlant work both boys survive, the results of the severance of their innocent love for one another will surely color their lives forever.

       As I stated, the major theme of The Fire That Burns—the battle between spirit and flesh, the love of god as opposed to the fire that burns without light—is what the debate late in the film between the young L'abbé de Pradts (Malavoy) and Le père supérieur (Michel Aumont) is all about, providing the work’s major message.

      But this film, despite the director and De Montherlant’s didactic intentions, is far more interested—necessarily given the original writer’s own sexual tendencies—in demonstrating how they have come to this dilemma than in how they might resolve it.

      The Fire That Burns, unlike its cinematic predecessor, does not focus as much upon the love of the schoolboys, in this case a poor and indolently parented 12-year old boarder Souplier (Clément van den Bergh)  and a 16 or 17 year-old day-school attendee Sevrais (Naël Marandin),  the brightest boy in the school. The two have met in the year before the movie even begins, so we have little idea how they fell in love; and since they meet only twice within the frames of the film, we have no precise understanding of how their relationship began or where it now stands in terms of how much of it entails a simple caring, like an older brother, in hopes that the younger might better himself—a relationship which at one point Servais attests he wishes it could—or if it has progressed to sexual desire or even acts. We do, in their first free meeting, observe them kissing; and they, like the boys in  Les Amities Particulieres, make a blood pact that they will love one another forever, a dangerous commitment given the machinations of their superiors.

       But finally, we can only presume that their relationship was like De Montherlant’s own in just such  religious institution when he was young. At age 16 De Montherlant was expelled from the Sainte-Croix de Neuilly school for being a “corruptor of souls.” He, along with five other boys, had founded a group called “La Famille” (the Family), whose members made an oath to one another of fidelity and mutual assistance, not unlike the kind of pact Servais and Souplier commit to in the film. One member of that group, Philippe Jean Giquel, had become the writer’s “special friend,” with whom he observes he was madly in love, although their relationship never became physical. De Montherlant argues that their special friendship raised a fierce and jealous opposition by the Abbé de La Serre, who was the one who had him expelled. This incident cleaarly was the basis not only for the play we are discussing here, but a longer fiction, Les Garçons (1969).

       The focus of the film, accordingly, is not the relationship between the boys, but the total obsession the L'abbé de Pradts has for Souplier, the 12-year old. Once again, many of the major events in the story had already occurred before the film begins, but by film’s end we know that L’abbé has stood up at least 3 times for the boy when he was about be expelled for grades and offensive behavior, and at one point in the past has argued for a lower tuition so that the boy, whose parents cannot afford the payment, might become the boarder, his new position, as he tells Sevrais, early in the film—an important alteration since the boys will now not be able to meet each other in the town or at their homes.

       De Pradts justifies his attentions to the boy—to others and perhaps even to himself—as a concern for his physical and intellectual needs. Throughout the film Souplier describes himself as a complete misfit, someone who can do no good and is inept at nearly everything he attempts, even unable to keep the promises he keeps making. Obviously, he has been so abused at home and in the school that he has utterly no sense of worth. The love shown him by Sevrais understandably is an amazing gift by which he is truly overwhelmed.

      What Sevrais cannot comprehend is why De Pradts is paying him so much attention to demand he break up his “special relationship” with Souplier. What possible purpose is there in their endless late night meetings in L’abbé’s office where even his natural curiosity about the typewriter  becomes a subject or irritation. Correction and outright verbal abuse is all he has known throughout his life, so the constant watch over his well-being by De Pradts is met with utter indifference, although he comprehends that, at least, he means no evil.

        That is not precisely what Sevrais perceives, but he is also a believer in logic if not in religion, and cannot imagine the passions De Pradts is holding back in his pretense for his friend’s everyday betterment. So when he hears that L’abbé has outlawed their friendship, he dares to meet with his powerful enemy in an attempt to clarify that he wants the same thing for his friend as does De Pradts. And surprisingly L’abbé appears to be not only convinced but allows their meetings as long as it does not become physical.

       What neither of the boys could possibly comprehend is that De Pradts, despite his pretense to others and himself, is very much engaged in a slow involvement with the boy that will lead to the physical, inviting him on a weekend outing (with other boys and supposedly involving athletic activities such as swimming and rafting) which will as we now describe it, to further “groom” Souplier so that he will trust being alone with him. We have already been shown he evidence, a photo of the boy he secretly keeps in the drawer of his desk.

       By allowing the boys to meet, accordingly, De Pradts can get further reports on the boy’s attitude toward him and perhaps even encourage Souplier’s good feelings about him. Moreover, by permitting their gathering, L’abbé has set a trap for the older boy, of which another teacher unsuccessfully attempts to warn him.

       Meeting up in the storage room to which Sevrais has a key, the boys once more share their love for one another. But this time Sevrais is determined, not unlike De Pradts, to indicate that his major role in their relationship is one of brotherly caring and improvement in his demeanor rather than passion, although he also expresses his deep feelings and the boys do make their lifelong pact. In the young 17-year-old’s thinking, the shift in his intentions and attentions may mask his other feelings, but he truly believes them and wishes to enact just such changes upon his friend, while for De Pradts it is a hypocritical ruse, a refusal to admit himself what his true attentions are. Because of De Pradts’ age and position, his love for Souplier is not pure but represents a kind a madness that has overcome and infected him.

       When he sees the light go on in the storage room—throughout the film he is constantly watching Sevrais’ every movement, just as we gradually perceive Le père supérieur is watching De Pradts—he rushes to interrupt their now illegal rendezvous, particularly since it appears to be in a private, hidden space. Even as the boys begin to part, Souplier sees him approaching and rushes back in, instinctually locking the door and hiding which obviously makes it appear that the two have been up to something.

        And when De Pradts finally does discover that that they are still together, after Sevrais has been forced now to lie since his friend has hidden himself in the same room, the entire system, itself consisting of lies, illicit passions, and ruses falls upon the heads of the boys whose caring and love for one another has truly been innocent.

        Sevrais is forced to discover his fall from grace in the public classroom, realizing that the reason why he has not this time received the highest grades on his papers is that the papers have not even been read. He has already become nonexistent in a system that refuses to even tell him that he no longer a member in good standing. Again, he forced into a standoff debate with De Pradts before finally uncovering the truth that he has been expelled at the very moment that he has completed his final exams.

          The elder tells him that he will recover in another school; but for a 16, almost 17-year old that kind of statement has utterly no meaning. What will his parents imagine? How will he be able to gain entry into another institution? And will he be able to sustain his own sense of well-being after such a painful rejection?

        Just as bad, Le père supérieur, realizing what has happened through De Pradts’ action expels Souplier as well and demands that De Pradts—just as L’Abbé has demanded of Sevrais—that he never see him again. Although Sevrais has painfully agreed to that restriction, despite its denial of love and honesty, De Pradts cannot bring himself to agree to those terms. As  Le père supérieur attempts to explain to his follower his reasons for the decision he recounts that he too, early in his career, had felt so deeply for someone that he had focused on the individual instead of the whole of the institution, recalling that when he was forced to recognize that fact he did “get over it,” was able to realize that love was not singular for a priest but plural, and was even able to meet up again with that person later in his life.

      But what he now has done, perhaps unknowingly, is sent a boy back to uncaring parents with the knowledge that once again he has failed, even in responding to attention and love. For Souplier there is no “getting over it.” He has been defined, made into an unlovable failure in life, somebody who no one truly wants. Like the young boy in Les Amities Particulieres, he might as well leap from the train home to his death, believing there is no one any longer who would even want to love him, that even those who spoke of love betrayed him. The only thing that may save him in this case is that those feelings have helped to make him an entirely uncaring and passive being, afraid to even act out his innate intelligence or his feelings. We have heard him talk about his failings with Sevrais, speaking in the words not of a child but of the surrounding adults.

      So far, De Pradts has still been deluding himself about the nature of his love. But in response to the Le père supérieur’s suggestion that he might meet up “again someday,” he finally breaks through the wall of his pretense, responding, “No, it will be too late.” And suddenly, his senior realizes that he is not at all talking about the heart, but the “face,” not the spirit, but the body. And in pointing out that fact, De Pradts himself can no longer imagine that his love for the boy had anything at all to do with the improvement of his manners, hygiene, or education. It was the body that De Pradts was fighting over all along. His obsession was not over the boy’s betterment but his “face,” his appearance, his voice, his presence eventually in his bed.

       

     The film only intimates these issues, obviously unable to delineate them so clearly in a public television film of 1996. But even that it was shown as popular entertainment demonstrates just how different is the French attitude toward pedophilia and boy-love than the hysteria we have long expressed over the very same subjects in the US. 

        This film, as well as the earlier Les Amities Particulieres, are beautifully filmed, extraordinarily moving works exploring same sex love between individuals of significant differences in their ages in a manner that perhaps can never be explored that way again.

        As I wrote above, both Henry De Montherlant and Roger Peyrefitte were highly respected and awarded for their contributions to French literature. Only in the recent discussions of pedophile behavior by writers Gabriel Matzneff, Michel Foucolt, and others has French culture perhaps begun to come to terms with the implications of what these authors wrote openly in their own literary contributions about adult-child sex.

        And, of course, it is not only the French. There is the situation in Germany in the 1970s where boys up for foster care were deliberately placed with pedophile adults with the presumption that they would better care for the boys than others (see The New Yorker, July 26, 2001).

        But then there is also the US hysteria about the matter, our convictions that even the slightest sexual encounter between a younger person and an elder leads automatically to a life of inexhaustible and irretractable horror for the child victim. And most countries and in most of the US today we have long outlawed the possibility of these two boys, had they wanted to, might join in sex. The 16-17 year old elder today would be arrested, branded a sex-offender, and banned for the rest of his or her life from living in any location even remotely near children had it been even consensual sex. Of US cinema makers perhaps only Arthur J. Bressan’s Abuse of 1983, attempted to explore this territory—a film which no one, I suspect, would dare to make today.

 

Los Angeles, July 2, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).