L’enfance nue

Naked Childhood

Maurice Pialat’s bracing and unsentimenal feature debut charts the life of a pre-teen boy in foster care.

  • Director

    Maurice Pialat

  • With

    Michel Terrazon, Linda Gutenberg, Raoul Billerey, Pierrette Deplanque

  • France 1968. 83min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    15

  • English subtitles

Produced by François Truffaut and sitting alongside his The 400 Blows as one of cinema’s most searing portraits of fractured youth, Pialat’s debut is an extraordinary achievement. Terrazon is impressive as François, a ten-year-old trapped in the foster care system, whose angst manifests itself in violent outbursts. The film doesn’t refrain from showing the boy’s cruelty, but it also hints at his capacity for kindness and charity.