Atomic Age

L’Âge Atomique

Two young guys explore the Paris night: love, friendship, rock ‘n’ roll and melancholy in this seductive mood piece by new director Héléna Klotz.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


Image gallery

  • Director Héléna Klotz
  • Producer Alexandre Perrier
  • Screenwriter Héléna Klotz, Elisabeth Perceval
  • With Eliott Paquet, Dominik Wojcik, Niels Schneider
  • France 2011
  • 67 mins
  • UK distribution TLA RELEASING

Teenage hipsters Victor and ennui-laden Rainer take the train into Paris, swig Red Bull, banter about the Stone Roses, and muse about what awaits them. Checking into a club, Victor hits on the girls, while Rainer spikily rebuffs the advances of a male admirer. Testosterone surges, bravado leads to a face-off… just another night on the town, quoi. Gorgeously shot by Hélène Louvart, this vivid, atmospheric mood piece-cum-character study does indeed capture the fragile, volatile isotope-like nature of a certain male age, as well as offering a delicately insightful take on the homoerotic currents of young male friendship. Rock ’n’ roll in a very French way, with shades of Romantic-poet spleen, Atomic Age is co-written by the director’s mother Elisabeth Perceval, regular collaborator with Nicolas Klotz (Heartbeat Detector), and there’s a definite shared family aesthetic in Héléna Klotz’s deeply haunting exploration of a border between realism and abstraction.

Jonathan Romney