Tendres Cousines
( “Tender Cousins”; aka: “Cousins in Love” )
France / W Germany : 1980 : dir. David Hamilton : : 91 min
prod: : scr: : dir.ph.:
Thierry Tevini; Valerie Dumas …...……………………………………………………………………
Anja Shute; Elise Cervier; Jean-Yves Chatelais; Macha Meril; Catherine Rouvel; Pierre Vernier; Laure Deschanel;
Evelyne Dandry; Jean Rougerie; Pierre Chantepie; Anne Fontaine; Jean-Louis Fortuit; Hannes Kaetner;
Gaella LeGrand; Fanny Meunier; Jean-Pierre Rambal; Silke Rein; Carmen Weber
Ref: Pages Sources Stills Words Ω 8 M Copy on VHS Last Viewed
3395b 3.5 5 4 1,076 No c1992
Milk-tea pornography
for the commercial
mainstream – full of
“CIDER WITH ROSIE”
visuals, a deal of
undressing, and very
little sex. The joke of it
all on the heterosexual
and tragic is that the
film’s hero, Thierry
Tevini, is prettier and
more sensual than any
of the bevy of maidens
he’s supposed to be
enchanted by. And his
name is a lot sexier to
boot. Source: CVMC
Speelfilm Encyclopedie review: marginally less vacant-headed script (by "LA
DENTELLIERE" author Pascal Lain), and
“In 1939 a fifteen-year old spends the summer reasonable performances from the older
holidays out of doors, far from the economic generation, but they remain superfluous to a
crisis and political tensions. He's in love with decorative coffee-table picture book. ** ”
a cousin who prefers her elder sister's
boyfriend, but he can't complain for want of
attention from other girls and young women. The Time Out Film Guide review:
Hamilton's picture postcard style, with young
girls in various states of undress shot in “Feeble sexploiter set in the French countryside
"artistic" soft focus, was supported by a at the start of World War II. A male lead with
the build of a nine-year old (and a dubbed voice like Dustin Hoffman circa
This scene was certainly
absent from the print I
saw. Time Out says the
hero has “the build of a
nine-year old” – they’re
perhaps more familiar
with the build of nine-year
olds than I am. He looks
13/14, and scrumptious.
Source: CVMC
"THE GRADUATE") beds an almost endless Rated NR: adult themes [sic]; sexual scenes;
queue of palpitating teenage girls. The oily- moderate nudity; mild violence; frequent
lensed soft focus of "respectable" erotica sexual themes
merchant Hamilton more often looks like a Language: French (with English subtitles)
badly processed Super-8 home movie, with Categories: Boy Films, Adolescent, Comedy,
playing and dialogue to match, and all the Coming-of-Age, First Love, Girl Films,
sexuality of a stale meringue.” Adolescent ”
Video Movie Guide 1993 review: Movieboys website summary:
“Okay soft-core sex comedy about the “Summer 1939 in the Provence, France: the 14
amorous adventures of two pubescent cousins. years old Julien has a crush on his cousin Julia,
Directed by renowned photographer, David who lives together with his family in their small
Hamilton. In French with English subtitles. hotel. Unfortunately she ignores him, because
** ” she’s several years older. Then the hotel guest
Charles enters the competition, a slimy twenty-
something who lusts for the girl, despite the fact
CVMC video retail/rental website review: that he’s engaged.”
“Fourteen year old Julien (Thierry Tevini) is in
love with his cousin, Julia (Anja Shute). Soon [no listing in "Halliwell's Film Guide",
to be sixteen, the girl isn't much interested in "Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide
him, prefers the companionship of the man 2001", “Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide”,
engaged to marry Julien's older sister; Julia's "The Critics’ Film Guide", "The Good Film
little sister, Puone (Valerie Dumas), roughly and Video Guide", "Movies on TV and
twelve, wouldn't mind dating her cousin, Videocassette 1988-89", “Radio Times
though, has a big crush on him. If this is Guide to Films”, "Rating the Movies
starting to sound a bit complicated, make note (1990)", "The Sunday Times Guide to
that Julien's dad is hot for the young stable- Movies on Television", "TV Times Film &
hand (Pierre Chantepie), really likes seeing the Video Guide 1995", "Variety Movie Guide
older adolescent in a dress. Will our young 1993", or "The Virgin Film Guide"]
hero ever manage to hook up with the right
girl? A thoroughly charming erotic comedy
directed by David Hamilton. The dubbing isn't
bad.
The final shot of the film. She slaps his face and he sits up, astonished, to elicit the sympathy of the camera. Is it art?
Hardly, but judiciously-modest clumps of grass keep it on the safe side of obscenity laws anyhow. Hamilton tried to
make rustic sexual indulgence a Sunsilk commercial with its togs off, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Source unknown
Ignored by the majority of mainstream film guides, not because it’s continental, or because it’s
a bad film, but because convention says that pornography – even as limp as this – has no
place in “legitimate” cinema, unless the director happens to have the caché of a Fellini,
Pasolini or Bertolucci. The excellent Speelfilm Encyclopedie is the only film source I’ve
encountered to date which reviews pornographic titles by the same criteria as everything else.
The majority are a waste of celluloid, and it says so, but takes no moral position on the
subject matter.
Erotica remains a valid distinction from bald-faced pornography of course, but since
censorship constraints in the UK meant that such commercial pornography as did appear on
general release in the 1970s was scarcely more explicit, the distinction became meaningless.
Hamilton’s pretensions of making an art-house movie, after the fashion of "EMMANUELLE"
(73), have in any case the same hollow ring as Victorian photographers producing “artistic”
studies of female nudes.
In its UK release cut, this film would scarcely excite even the most sex-starved adolescent. It
is about as explicit as a "CARRY ON" film, and the plotting about as doltish. What makes it a
bit of a hoot, however, is that the very young protagonist, Thierry Tevini, happens to be far
prettier than any of the supposedly delectable country maids he romps in the barn with. He
has the anxious air of a boy who wandered in off the set of "OLIVER!", or something similar,
and finds himself up to his luxuriant eyelashes in women's lingerie. Even the musical sound
of his name lends the film a poetry it scarcely deserves. The 1930s setting is entirely
spurious, and chiefly an excuse to drape the female cast in period underwear. The dubbing,
one need hardly add, is atrocious.
Under present UK law, of course, most of the boy's partners would be packed off directly to
jail for "abusing" him, and he would be marked down for some severe “counselling”, so that –
crass and opportunist though it may be – this film now looks a deal healthier, saner, and more
relaxed about the exploits of puberty than the raging torrent of sex-negative “abuse” dramas
“A sensuous coming of age story” it claims. Pull the other one,
we reply. Source: CVMC website
from the 1990s and beyond. The message “sex is just good fun” is infinitely preferable to the
message “sex will cause you irreparable harm”. Nothing else is known of Thierry Tevini or
Valerie Dumas.
See subject index under PASTORALS / HOLIDAYS IN THE COUNTRY and SEX &
SEXUALITY.
