Les Amitiés Particulières

Lately I've had this powerful urge to watch black and white films, and seeing as I couldn't get a hold of Les Amitiés Particulières fast enough, I had to settle for 50s horror movies over the past few days.

Les Amitiés Particulières  is a French film made in 1964, set in the 1920s. It takes place in an all-boys Catholic boarding school, where the aristocratic Georges De Sarre falls in love with a younger boy, Alexandre - when he was the alter boy holding the lamb. At first Georges had fallen for a boy his age called Lucien, who was already in love with another boy and didn't return his feelings. He moves on to Alexandre, meeting him in secret and sending him romantic poems. The two soon form a really close bond, and whether it is love or friendship, it is hard to tell. Trying to keep their relationship secret was hard, especially as their love was strictly prohibited by the Catholic Church at the time. They end up separated before the summer holidays, and Georges is forced to send him back all his love letters and tell him there was never anything between them. Distraught, Alexandre commits suicide; not knowing that there was a letter Georges withheld from sending, telling him to meet him in the holidays.

Les Amitiés inspired the comic The Heart of Thomas, written by Moto Hagio, so I decided to give it a go as I loved the comic. It was hard to find at first, and virtually impossible on Amazon and Ebay, but I asked my Dad to find it for me the other day, and he actually did! I'm so happy I got a chance to watch this amazing film, because I was becoming obsessed with trying to watch the un-subtitled version on YouTube and only understanding the odd phrase (Eat, Eat! and Sit down, sit down! were the only phrases I picked up on, ahaha).

 

For me, I found this film very, very sad, but extraordinarily beautiful. The relationship between Georges and Alexandre is so pure and gentle, and the time and setting just makes it that much more exciting. In parts, I almost wanted to scream at the priests for being so nosy and interfering by separating them... Especially as it caused Alexandre to die!

I want to write a fanfiction for this film, too, as it was really inspiring. Maybe it could be about the summer they could have had if that letter was delivered.