Les Meteorites

This 2018 film directed by Romain Laguna and starring Zea Duprez is available to stream for free on Amazon Prime. I became aware of it because it played in the 2019 Rendez-vous with French Cinema https://www.filmlinc.org/daily/rendez-vous-with-french-cinema-2019-lineup/ festival at Lincoln Center. This festival is super well curated – though the anchor films with big stars by well known directors are often duds while the more obscure titles can be standouts. Les Meteorites is a terrific film. Like so many of my favorite French films its an intimate story (or intimiste as my wife says) of a young person finding their way in life. 16 year old Nina lives in the south of France in the countryside near Beziers. She’s a remarkably self-composed character who lives close to nature with no ambition in any conventional sense and little self-awareness. She’s absolutely self-assured though. She’s dropped out of school, lost her job and has no plans – but doesn’t seem bothered. She lives with her pot smoking mom who seems to make her living selling the produce she grows at a local market. Nina comes and goes as she pleases without her mother paying much attention – but there’s a nice connection between them – that’s beautifully highlighted in a matter of fact scene in which they carry a refrigerator down the stairs. There’s no man around to help them and they wouldn’t expect any help even if there were. Nina is a real child of nature – always observing insects animals and other natural phenomena (as in the movie’s title). Another matter of fact scene has her feeding horses with touching complicity. This film has so much of what I love about French cinema. The rural setting is gorgeous, Nina is a compelling character, the story arc ignores the conventions of American cinema. I could go on. Its a hidden gem. The sort of film I recommend to people knowing they’ll never see it. Worse – they just think I’m a pretentious idiot blathering on about another crappy French movie.