“So, is that stuffing?” Is not a phrase you will hear in this doc – Bangumi
- TMC is offering this Tuesday evening, at 9.15 p.m., a documentary entitled One year with teens: why they are less stupid than they seem.
- The report is intended to be the portrait of a generation which oscillates between small daily worries and activism.
- “I want it to be a film which testifies to what adolescence is in its endless questions, in what it has of clichés and what it has new in 2021”, testifies the director Emmanuel Le Ber for 20 minutes.
He went from age spots to acne pimples. Two years ago, director Emmanuel Le Ber plunged into the world of “old people” to tell how “they have become cooler than the young”. The result of his immersion was a success, to such an extent that the producer Laurent Bon asked him to repeat the exercise, but this time with a population less wrinkled and more adept of fat mat and Snapchat: the teenagers.
In turn, young people aged 12 to 19 take the floor on subjects anchored in their daily lives such as lessons, revisions, social networks, love, the first time and even activism. It is also to show “that they are much less stupid than they seem” that the director handed them his microphone. “It’s a bit like us idiots because we have the impression that they are stuck on their phone but they adapt, they use past generations not to reproduce the same errors, testifies Emmanuel Le Ber for 20 minutes. We can speak for them, but if we listen to them, they are the ones who teach us a lesson. “
Teenagers fond of testifying
Manage “bad” lessons, avoid having too much “seum” when you are “rejected” by a girl… These questions are addressed in the documentary, and if you did not understand anything in the previous sentence, then you should tune into TMC this Tuesday evening. Faced with mutual misunderstandings, the director wanted to make his film “a survival manual for parents in a teenage country. “
For this, he cast his panel of young people via classified ads posted on social networks. “Looking for a teenager between 13 and 18 years old wanting to express themselves on their experience as a teenager. The future witnesses jostled at the gate to tell their stories and the documentary teams then made their choice, according to the age, social category and personality of each and every one. Some have even agreed to be followed at home in order not to make a portrait gallery “but rather the portrait of a generation. “
“Spontaneously, they spoke, I didn’t force anything, I didn’t need to work on them,” indicates Emmanuel Le Ber. I think they have something to say despite their young age. They are tired of being pushed aside a little bit. Society in itself is fascinated by the adolescent, even if it criticizes and judges him. »Thus, the documentary is interested in intergenerational dialogue and gives the floor from time to time to parents, whom we sometimes feel a little overwhelmed.
“Sometimes they want to provoke”
Collecting the voices of adolescents was not an insurmountable challenge for Emmanuel Le Ber, who however specifies that the ease with which they confided in him could be a double-edged sword. “Sometimes they want to be interesting, to show off, to provoke,” he warns. When editing, there are always times when we pay a little attention to what they say because we don’t want it to turn against them, for it to be misinterpreted. One of the points of vigilance will therefore have been to exclude those who came for the wrong reasons, namely to go on TV to impress their friends.
And the mission is successful. All of them are endearing, like Louis and Victor, aged fourteen. Students of 3rd, they say themselves inseparable and form a music group. And while we ask them to describe their relationship, the brainstorming leads to this sentence: “I don’t love you like a girl but I love you like a brother”.
The documentary is full of other equally touching moments, like the portrait of Warren at the beginning of the report. In his room (which would scare Super Nanny), this 12-year-old fiery Marseillais is able to wipe away a tear at the mention of his parents’ divorce and then talk about the time he tried to smoke a cigarette a few minutes later. A sudden change of expression, a perfect allegory of adolescent feelings.
A photograph of the generation, not of the year 2020
“I want it to be a film that testifies to what adolescence is in its endless questions, in what it has of clichés and what it has new in 2021”, pleads the director. And while we see them masked, teens do not express themselves on this year marked by the Covid-19. According to Emmanuel Le Ber, his young witnesses are “in permanent resilience and adaptability”, which makes it possible to make the coronavirus a non-subject.
The documentary therefore wants to focus on what is most universal in the daily life of adolescents, from their reflection in the mirror in the morning before leaving for college or high school to their love affairs, through the menu of the canteen. . And what better (or worse) memory than the vegetable gardener to find something common to all generations?