Suradit It is rather difficult to separate the presentation from the message, especially when the content of this film is undeniably disturbing (and exceedingly complex), no matter how liberal and open-minded some reviewers may wish to portray themselves. The story, the acting, the directing and the final product are all exceedingly well done, regardless of how one is angered and disturbed by what happens to Jonas, the central character in the film. In fact, the resulting emotional response to it all is testament to how well it was done. Towards the end of the movie Jonas, the young man who is the central focus of the story, angrily declares to his "mentor" that he has been abused by him. The stark reality of this, while hardly revelatory to the viewer, appears to come as a shock to both the abused and the abuser. In fact, most of the adults in the film have abused him, either actively or through neglect or incompetence or indifference. While the sexual aspect of it is the most glaring and disturbing, it is not the only way in which adults have failed him. At his age, he might be thought of as being on the border between child and young adult, but he is clearly child-like in his emotional development and vulnerabilities.The title, élève libre, has been translated to "Private Lessons." A more accurate meaning of the original title would be, in American English at least, an "auditing student" or an "unregistered student," someone studying outside of the normal student-in-school setting. Because Jonas believes, or has been led to believe, that he has the potential to become a professional tennis player, he has neglected his school work. Since he is already several years older than the other students in his class, his school refuses to allow him to repeat his studies again. They recommend that he enter a vocational school, which Jonas regards as a place for losers. Coincident with this personal trauma, his mediocre performance in tennis means he must face the fact that he will never become a tennis pro. His core family offers no support for him in his hope to once again prepare for his exams. Enter Didier, Nathalie and Pierre, friends of his mother. Initially they appear to offer Jonas support, both practical and emotional, in his quest to prepare for re-sitting his exams. They, in particular Pierre, take on the role that might better have been played by his family. At the same time that Jonas is dealing with problems with family, school and tennis, he is trying to understand the mysteries of sex and romance. He has a girlfriend, Delphine. They are both virgins and they begin to explore their sexuality together to their mutual satisfaction, but because of all the other "failures" in his life, Jonas wonders whether he is failing in this too.At first it seems the trio of adults in his life are also going to provide him with the benefit of their experience and wisdom in matters sexual, but what begins as dinner table conversations offering reassurance and some helpful advice, turns into an increasingly obsessive interest by them in Jonas and his sexual performance. Following their advice and sharing with them the intimacy of his relationship with Delphine eventually, understandably offends Delphine and ruins their relationship. The adults then become sexually involved with Jonas in a way that even the most open-minded person cannot deny is totally exploitative and abusive. I've read some reviews where the writer feels that the story is dragged out excessively by the lengthy conversations between the characters, especially the dinner table discussion between Jonas and the three adults, but these were essential to the development of those characters and the increasingly obsessive, disturbing interest they had in Jonas as someone to exploit for their own pleasure.This film will undoubtedly disturb or anger or titillate or otherwise provoke an emotional response from viewers. It is certainly not a feel-good experience with a happy ending (although there is a somewhat lame final scene that might be considered a happy ending). That the hetero and homosexual target of the abuse is a beautiful young man rather than a girl will probably be all the more offensive to some. Objectively it can only be considered an excellent production that deals with an unpleasant topic.

jm10701 Although I can't say I liked this movie, I'm giving it a fairly high rating (six stars) because what it does it does very effectively. I had to keep reminding myself that the creeps in this movie are not real people, which means the ones who made it did a good job.Unlike some other reviewers, the sexual element didn't affect me much either way. I neither approve nor disapprove of unrelated adults coaching an effectively orphaned teenage boy in the arts and sciences of sex, any form of sex he's interested in experiencing. If he's old enough to do it, and if he's interested, then it's okay. If God hadn't wanted adolescents to be sexually active he could easily have designed them to mature sexually at a later age, but he didn't.But what does bother me a great deal in this movie is the extraordinarily selfish way the adults treat the adolescents. They are cruel, shallow, snide, petty and totally self-absorbed creeps, and they push their creepiness aggressively onto the emotionally vulnerable adolescents. That emotional abuse is what I find repellent. The fact that Jonas and Delphine are children (and they ARE children emotionally, even though they are not children physically) is almost incidental.Pierre, Nathalie and Didier are bullies, and if their victims had been people of any age, even people their own age who were less aggressively arrogant than they are - and even if the focus had been on something besides sex: on money or looks or physical fitness or social class or something else - their behavior would have been just as despicable as it was in this movie. They are bullies, and bullies are always despicable.But the creepiness is so pervasive and so effectively portrayed that the director and writers MUST have done it intentionally. We must be SUPPOSED to despise these people, and we do. So this movie is in the odd class of well made movies that are intentionally unpleasant to watch because they're about despicable characters. Dennis Hopper was in many movies like that.

ynoel-2 It is said (and I have noted to be true) that people see in other people, in works of Art etc. or anything subjective, what THEY actually are. They project their own being, or shortcomings or fears or hidden secrets. That the author of the review below attack this sensitive film is such a disproportionately virulent (and plainly erroneous) way has said much more about him as a person than he probably intended to express. And to call a 17 year-old a 'child' (and who is in his full legal right to consent to any relationship he wishes to pursue, protected by the law itself) is so absurd as to suggest the author had a North American education. To see rape, to see perverted seduction in what is most obviously all but that, would be an alarm calm for anyone reading his review on this subtle film. What is sure is that with such a serious imbalance within him to feel the need to explode in this way, I would make sure no one below 18 walk near him. We have many recent examples of those who shouted far above the rest, and ended up being caught with their pants down, and I don't mean figuratively. His review reads like an open book of serious personal issues, as yet unresolved, and if his review serves any purpose it would be to help him seek assistance. More to do with the film now; it is of course slow and bleak like many European films, but like many European films dare to recount real life, real subtleties, real complexities of relationships that much cinema avoids - and that many like the author mentioned above would like to push so deep into (their subconscious) perversion as to ...create a perversion in itself, quite aside from the what the filmmaker made. It somehow makes them feel they have crushed their demon for a while - little to do with a review.

fedor8 In hedonistic France this is probably defined as a "family drama", rather as "sexploitation shock-cinema".Thumbs up for French cinema: it has actually managed to devolve from perennial underage-Lolita-seduces-middle-aged-man to middle-aged-man-seduces-boy scripts. Just as you thought decadence in French movies could not possibly get any worse than it's been in recent decades, comes EL, a movie that will have you vomiting for weeks.The basic plot: Jonas, a not-too-bright 16(?) year-old tennis hopeful (how many tennis hopefuls ARE bright?) is sent to the home of Pierre, a middle-aged intellectual wannabe, where Jonas learns maths, history, and how to receive oral sex from people two-to-three times his age.Pierre - the smelly society-loathing anarchist pervert who ogles him at every opportunity and indulges in lame, self-serving philosophical diatribes - quickly introduces two more smelly perverts in Jonas's life: Nathalie and Didier, an open-relationship orgy/swinger couple who treat sex as if it were a used chewing-gum. One look at those three and you'd run. But what does Jonas know about running? After all, he's just a tennis player... Very soon Jonas finds out that maths, history and nihilistic philosophical rants are not at the top of Pierre's passions, but that molesting boys tops all his lists by a long shot. He sneakily prepares Jonas for this delightful adolescence-ruining ordeal by first destroying the boy's relationship with his girlfriend (by having everyone at the dinner table openly snicker at her for her alleged sexual inadequacies), and then getting Didier and Nathalie to prepare Jonas for a world of sexual perversion by giving him oral sex while Jonas, the gullible schmuck that he is, sits there blind-folded, unaware that he's being set up by three very, very smelly perverts for a life of bisexuality involving older men and rather unappealing middle-aged women with big noses.In the end, Jonas predictably starts feeling rather gloomy about having regular catching sex with his 45 year-old pitching male teacher. To cheer Jonas up a bit and perhaps avert a suicide attempt or two, Pierre tells him the movie's final line of dialogue: "I never forced you to do anything you didn't want." That line must be what all pedophiles love to use after desecrating the body of a minor. (Right after "hey, you asked for it!".) Even worse than all the stench-drenched pedophilic shenanigans that transpire in EL is the writer's message to the (young?) viewer to "think for yourself (like Kami says you should)" which invariably means - at least in the context of this degenerate movie - that children are the hope of not just the world, but of all of the world's lusting pedophilic perverts. The movie can even be understood as a guide for emerging pedophiles: it offers useful seduction tips for all those losers who are sexually attracted to children. For example, leave porn tapes lying around the living room, the way Pierre does.Who financed this abhorrent trash? That notorious Dutch pedophile political party? Pierre is supposed to be a former tennis player. However, his skills are on par with the most talentless beginner imaginable. It was like watching a rhino play golf.Why would they cast Jonas, a kid who obviously knows hot to play, along with an "established ex-pro" who obviously can't swing a racket in any useful manner - except to accidentally hit himself over the head with it? Needless to say, the movie is also bad because it contains dozens of drawn-out scenes/moments when everything seems to move in slow motion. Yeah, the century-old affliction of Europe's pretentious "cinema del arte" i.e. junk cinema. "Arteaux means never having to rush, never having to edit the movie to make it compact hence interesting". Did Kami say that? From his grave, perhaps...AVOID.A certain reviewer has posted a comment here with the sole intention of "educating me". (Or so he claims in the laughable email he sent me.) Read his "wonderful" plea for child-molestation: it's poetic almost. And, no, the kid is 16, pal, not 18.To the other reviewer (the one who says "bro"): no, I didn't refer to the kid's tennis-playing abilities being under-par. I was talking about the adult pervert playing like a rank amateur. Read my text properly.