Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Film Evening Dress: Hot for Teacher
Posted by Justin Stewart on Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 1:31 PM
The devastation Juliette's unrequited love wreaks on her well-being is not pretty, and the exaggeration nimbly skirts comedy and horror simultaneously, like a reverse Lolita. "You degenerate pedophile!" she screams at Solenska. She has murderous nightmares and daydreams about herself in a grave.
Fact is, Solenska is very flirtatious with her students ("the handsome Antoine," she calls her purported young beau). With her teasing manner and generous assets spilling out of her flimsy outfits, she half-knowingly enjoys almost crossing the line, possibly to fill some uncertain void. That she is far from beyond reproach is one of the many thoughtful, adroit turns in Aziza's picture. Inflicting a cute kid with a fatal attraction sounds like a stunt offering exploitative fun, but while there are many tense, thriller-like buildups and payoffs, Aziza is more interested in the Rohmeresque moral intricacies of the situation. This separates it from something like Notes on a Scandal, in which gossip and psychological grotesqueness are paramount. With smooth, non-flashy craftsmanship, and the assistance of two fantastic lead performances, Aziza makes the scandalous quietly profound.
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