This is an astonishing film. Paul Vecchiali is an astonishing film maker. He has created his own vision since the beginning of the 1960's and yet in places like the UK he is an unknown. It is shameful and the cinema world ( especially in France should hang their heads in shame ). I have followed his career over the years, especially his concerns over the Gay community which he has been bold enough, and yes, controversial enough to put on screen. This film was made in 2006 and I have only just watched it. It questions the Internet and those sites that bring gay men together. It shows how older men put false images of themselves because they are afraid no one will notice them because they are older. It shows above all the rift between the young and those older in a a way that is both tenderly objective, and yet the lasting impression is of a rift that can never be truly healed. I cannot go into all the films complexities, but ' Et + si @ff ' is also to do with filming. Francoise Lebrun is the director and the various characters of the film revolve around her. Her son played superbly by Frederic Franzil ( every bit as good as the too celebrated Louis Garrel, and strikingly alike ) is gay and is searching for happiness in the world of the Internet. It is he and another fellow actor in Lebrun's world that link up with older men, either abusing them or giving them a transitory ' affection '. It is here that I have to mention how the beautiful and fine actor Francoise Lebrun, justly celebrated for her key role in the late Jean Eustache's masterpiece ' La Maman et la Putain ', holds this very fine film together. She is a unique actor in the way that Jeanne Moreau was unique, never condescending to her audience but simply ' being ' which is unique in itself in the world of cinema. This review is complex, because the film never condescends to its viewers. There are scenes in it equal to the best of French Gay/Queer cinema such as ' Sauvage ' and ' Theo and Hugo ' and just as honest towards the acts of sexuality. But as well as its honesty about sexuality it is also honest about a certain perception of the French gay scene. This is shown towards the end when Didier Lestrade, a commentator on current and past homosexuality in France explains his disturbingly accurate views on the subject. To call Vecchiali's work marginal would be insulting, but sadly I think it has been made so by other gay French film makers who have capitalised on success and left this now 90 year old director in the shade. I urge viewers who have any interest in the cinema of honesty to track his films down, especially this one. A fine director with the probing mind of Godard combined with the best of the boldest French Gay/Queer cinema.
