Les petits frères

Talia is thirteen. She quarrels with her stepfather and flees with her dog, a pitbull terrier with the unlikely name of Kim. She goes to Pantin, a suburb of Paris, to find a friend. But her friend has moved and gone to live with a foster family. She does meet four other children of her own age; witty, clever kids who seem to like her. But really they have other plans: first to win the confidence of Talia and then to steal and sell her dog, or have it take part in dog fights. They take Kim with them the very first night. Talia gets so angry and desperate that she gets herself a nickname: Mike Tyson. The ‘petits frères’ pretend that the ‘big boys’ did it. But Iliès, the eldest of the four kids, fancies Talia and wants to return her dog. Jacques Doillon succeeds in eliciting exceptional acting from his young actors. His recent features, Le petit criminel (1990), Le jeune Werther (1993) and Ponette (1996), show what oving effects can be evoked by his way of working with young actors. Doillon’s documentary approach is very good at typifying the body language, the rituals, the codes and everyday life of the youth – especially Talia – in a Paris suburb.