My Life on Ice (2002) User Reviews (16)

Etienne's video

[dbdumonteil · 8/10 · 26 March 2005]

Etienne a sixteen year old teenager lives with his widowed mother in Rouen. For his birthday, his grand-mother gives him something that will completely change his life: a video camera. From then onwards, he begins to film everyone around him (his mother, his grand-mother, his best pal, Ludovic his history and geography teacher) alternately with important events that happen to him in the beginning of the year 2002: his training in figure skating for the final, the transition at the Euro or the upheaval caused by the first results of the presidential elections with Jacques Chirac against the FN leader Jean Marie Le Pen...

They gave vigor to the musical again with "Jeanne and the Perfect Guy" (1998), they gave a new lease of life for the road movie in "the Adventures of Felix" (2000). The couple OLivier Ducastel-Jacques Martineau (behind the camera as well as in life) scores and signs with this particular exercise of style which brings the cinema to its basic roots which consist in pure filming. Indeed, all the movie is made through Etienne's camera and handled by a non-professional actor. A little like in "the Blair Witch Project" (1999), it takes a little time to get used to the incessant movements of the camera but once you overcame this difficulty, one can without any risk immerse oneself in the video made by Etienne and discover his (true) life in Rouen on account of the two director's intentions.

The camera gives Etienne a meaning to his life, a reason to live and it enables him to better understand the world that surrounds him. Moreover, Etienne is a teenager and adolescence is a difficult time because it's a transition between childhood and adulthood and in a way, the camera is here to reassure him, to make him gain self-confidence. By handling it, he feels safe enough to film a time of his life in bloom: a will to find true love (this year will be the year of love), curiosity about his body (he films parts of it) and affirmations of his passions (video, figure skating). On another extent, with his camera Etienne makes all the people he films go through all the possible reactions: from amusement to irritation through embarrassment (on these moments, it's nearly voyeurism) and his treasure has a real power on the filmed people because they often ask Etienne to stop filming them but without success (the sequence when Ariane Ascaride threatens his son to confiscate his camera but ends up giving it up is a good example).

By describing a delicate portrait of their young main character, by directing him according to their indications, the 2 real authors of this flick still remain faithful to their favorite topic: search for happiness. Something which affects the spectator too and with "my true life on ice in Rouen", they have succeeded once again in fulfilling their pledges: to make the spectator happy during all the film and we leave the projection with a big smile.

That said, one can have a few reservations about their third movie: not all the clichés linked to adolescence have been evacuated and the amateurish side of the whole may sometimes tire. Then, it seems a nit unlikely to me that Etienne's history-geography teacher can live with his mother. It's also a shame that the screenplay is often repetitive (the characters who express their annoyance when Etienne constantly films them). In a way, this last fault is nearly normal. The film-makers couldn't avoid him.

But overall it would be out of place to deny oneself at the vision of this delicate and sensitive movie with nearly a documentary aspect which isn't to be ranked in the same line as the terrible "Benny's video" (1992) by Michael Haneke. And for the film-makers, it is a faultless beginning of career so far. Let's hope it lasts.

Remark: "my True Life on Ice in Rouen" was shot in the city where I live: Rouen! So, it was funny to see familiar places in a movie.

Nice Movie

[alexgs1 · 7/10 · 15 November 2003]

That's the kind of movie that makes you leave the room with a nice feeling that the world is beautiful and everyone is in peace. The best scene though is when Etienne's stepfather starts doing a strip tease for him. Great! Pity it lasts only a few seconds as the latter changes his mind. By the way, the school teacher becomes boyfriend of Etienne's mum, after the boy is reprimanded at school. At least that is how I understood, but I got a bit confused when I read the previous user's comment.

Portrait by indirection

[Chris Knipp · 14 August 2003]

The central conceit of Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's Ma vraie vie à Rouen (2002, shown in London as Ma Vie) is that everything we see in it is shot on a digital video camera by Étienne, a sixteen-year-old lycée student and budding skating champion who lives with his widowed mother in Rouen. Étienne films everything he likes with his camera, beginning with his mom (Ariane Ascaride of La ville est tranquille), his grandma (Hélene Surgère), and his best pal, Ludo (Lucas Bonnifait). He even films himself his mom and her boyfriend watching TV. It's startling to see when he leaves the camera on, or has someone else use it at practice in a large skating rink, that he really is a potentially world class skater (the young actor, Jimmy Tavares is a real life skating champion )-- this gives one a sense of authenticity: Étienne is what he's supposed to be. There is an element of trompe-l'oeil in any fake artefact and Ma Vie's is very accomplished.

There's a constant soundtrack picked up by Étienne 's camera but there's no explanatory voiceover narration in Ma Vie. It's a quite convincing imitation of what home videos are like. People are constantly saying "J'arrive pas!" ("I can't do this!") to declare that they've become too self conscious to act natural before the camera. Étienne's mother, whom he adores, gets tired of being filmed all the time and says he will have to get her permission before shooting in future or she will "confiscate" the camera.

The handsome Ludo is a boy who, like the hero of Téchiné's J'embrasse pas (I Don't Kiss, 1991) wants to become an actor without having even the ability to memorize lines. Ludo reports to Étienne (and the camera) on a succession of girlfriends, but admits he hasn't gone all the way with any of them. Étienne has no girlfriends at all, but declares boldly that this will be his "année d'amour"--the year he's going to -- what? Get laid? Fall in love? Come out? It's hard not to suspect that Étienne is gay. He keeps surreptitiously filming his attractive (male) geography teacher, when not focusing on Ludo or his mom's boyfriend (also a lycée prof), and when Ludo grabs the camera and shoots a new female interest in class Étienne gets quite annoyed and says, "Hey, that's MY camera!"

Home video is an inarticulate, needless to say amateurish, medium, and Ma Vie progresses in the true home video style, awkwardly, constantly jerking forward with no logic than chronology to the next shot. As a self-conscious artifice, the film communicates by what it doesn't say, by what isn't there. The very fact that Étienne uses the camera so obsessively suggests that despite being a terrific athlete and having an affectionate little family and a nice best friend, he hasn't yet got much of a life. By pointing the camera out all the time he's both searching for himself and seeking to fill an inner void. Gradually hints of male-oriented sexuality creep out. He relentlessly shoots a male fellow skater undressing in the locker room. He shoots himself naked, and parts of his body, withdrawing into himself when his mother forbids him to film her any more. He focuses on her boyfriend so much that the boyfriend realizes he turns Étienne on, and, being a little drunk, provocatively threatens to undress. Commenting on an unsuccessful acting performance by Ludo , Étienne has revealingly declared to him, `But you looked good. You're handsome. You're really handsome!'

Ludo gets ditched by his best girl because Étienne's filming bothered her so much and seemed so unnatural. This aspect suggests burgeoning sexuality; but it never seems creepy that Étienne is so obsessive as a cameramen, because overall he always remains such a cheerful, healthy guy: he's just unformed and aggressively needy. Finally Étienne competes for the youth French Cup in figure skating and, because of a slip, gets second place. He has belatedly discovered a device that allows him to switch his camera on and off with a remote unit and he shoots himself and Ludo side by side and says, `Two losers.'

The inevitable tentative coming-out-to-the-best-friend conversation occurs in which Étienne asks Ludo, `Do you think a boy can love a boy?' Ludo says, `Only if he's a 'pédé [homo] he can,' but he flees from further declarations by Étienne.

On holiday in Brittany, Étienne has a footrace with his mom's boyfriend and after they have a scuffle the boyfriend falls on the rocks and breaks his leg. The attempt to displace the boyfriend is very oedipal - except that Étienne desires the boyfriend too.

There is also a classic home movie moment when Étienne's mom blows out the candles on her birthday cake, which they've put `all the candles' on, showing her actual age. Étienne shoots this moment over and over with new candles, showing that this isn't quite just a home video and has become an effort to stage his life or alter it and indeed to make his dreams and wishes come true as well as his mother's, especially perhaps the desire to erase the discrepancy between his and his mother's age.

Ma vraie vie à Rouen is the portrait of a waiting process. In a sense all the filming is stalling for time until that moment when Étienne's promise, that this will be his "année d'amour," suddenly, unexpectedly, perhaps inexplicable, comes true. The readiness is all. The camera creates a stage on which the major action is about to begin. There is suspense from shot to shot as one waits for that decisive moment to arrive.

And finally it does in a very short scene where Étienne is in a tent letting the camera shoot his seduction by another young man. It's the moment the whole film has been hinting at, but it's gone in an instant, and the film ends.

Ma vraie vie à Rouen isn't very memorable unless, like Gus van Sant's Gerry, you as the viewer bring to it the maximum attention and sympathy. This film is far more risky and experimental than Ducastel and Martineau's entertaining earlier narrative of a young gay HIV positive man's journey to find his father, Drôle de Félix (Adventures of Felix, 2000), yet it is pleasing and beautiful in its own way. The filmmakers have processed their digital video to give it a deep, vivid color and a smooth, handsome look, a little like early Polaroid snapshots. The film is as empty and unformed as its main character, but like him it is also fully of energy and a curious repressed dramatic tension. This is Étienne's film: he shoots most of it, and by watching how he shoots it, we learn by indirection who he is. Ma vraie vie à Rouen is a minimalist piece. But like any actual home video, it's rich in personal meaning. It's sweet, touching, and human if seen with a friendly eye, and in it Ducastel and Martineau have devised a subtle, fresh way of doing a gay coming of age film.

an adolescent indulgence

[hutuanga · 10/10 · 20 July 2006]

This is a coming of age story about a young gay man who likes to film people with is movie camera. He films absolutely everyone who is involved in his life but his family, his straight friend and his mother's boyfriend are the main subjects of his intense study.

It's actually a very unusual film and the way it is shown through the lens of the boy's camera is an approach to story telling that I have not seen in any other film. It records his passage through about a year of his adolescence, with plenty of candid and close up studies of his mother and grandmother as well as the two main men in his life, who both happen to be quite handsome men. It also records how he falls in love with his friend and his disappointment when he realises that his friend is definitely straight! Because of the unusual approach in filming it may not be to everyone's liking but it certainly left me feeling good. It's really quite a beautiful story.

Beautiful and charming cinéma-vérité.

[reviewerinoimdbino · 9/10 · 20 January 2008]

I immediately liked this movie simply because our hero is very handsome and poetic, and his best friend is even more handsome, but I wondered how the movie, all supposedly filmed by our hero and those in his milieu, would fill an hour and forty minutes. Have no fear, I was drawn into it and the leisurely pacing simply added to the poetry and visual beauty of the scenes.

It's a lot like the movie "Garcon Stupide" in its cinéma-vérité feel, but the simple, straightforward journey of one year in this boy's life makes for a more cohesive movie, I think.

The grandmother is reminiscent of Gena Rowlands. I don't know if that's good or bad, it just is. Most people would say that's good.

I enjoyed the travelogue aspect of the movie, the interesting bits and pieces of Rouen and other places that you're never going to see on the Travel Channel. But the heart of the film is the relationships between the characters, and the way those relationships are ruled by our hero's desires and obsessions.

For most of the film, everything is a matter of suggestion. Our hero is screamingly gay, but only his camera-work screams it out loud. He yearns for his teacher-cum-mother's-boyfriend, who sees this and maybe even likes this a little, but we never see anything come of this on screen, if anything happens at all.

His happiness will probably have to take another form.

Death by Boredom.

[aveeno2005 · 2/10 · 9 June 2012]

I had to fight back tears when I watched this movie because I seriously thought I was going to die of boredom, and I was scared because I didn't want to die. In some recess of my numbed brain, I knew boredom wasn't a recognised medical condition so wouldn't be listed as the official cause of death on my certificate. If any member of the Medical Council sat thought this movie, it would be. Or maybe not, cos they'd be dead too.

There was one scene at the end of the film which did spark some interest. When the boy was standing on the cliff and a guy passing sees the camera, he turns and approaches the boy, and I wanted to shout for joy, because for a nanosecond I thought the guy was gonna walk over and push the boy off the cliff. I would have.

I'll finish by saying I have nothing but admiration for those people who - like me - managed to watch this film to the very end. I salute you. And to all those who not only liked it but loved it, you are a complete mystery to me. I can only imagine it was the cuteness factor of the teenage boys. It's the only explanation for it's 6.7 rating and it's the only reason I gave it two stars instead of one. For Lucas Bonnifait.

Riveting

[wc1996-428-366101 · 10/10 · 9 June 2022]

This film is so subtle that you never really get it until the very end. There are clues along the way, but they are easy to miss if you are not paying attention. It is a slice of life film, very natural and paced realistically. In fact you get so caught up in the naturalness that you neglect to recall why you are watching to begin with although along the way you do get jarred into the reality of the drama but again it is so elusive you have to question if you really get it. The cast is absolutely outstanding across the board and very seductive so you have to be interested even if you have no idea where it is going. There are some very erotic scenes but they tease you rather than provide a sense of direction so aimlessly you continue saying to yourself where is this going and why am I here?

Not interesting at all

[shaid · 1/10 · 11 August 2004]

A film, any film, need a good basis. The basis lies in the script. Unfortunately this film has no script and that make the film as bad as one film can be. The characters and the story are not interesting enough to hold your attention for the whole 100 minute of the film.And while the main character is nice to watch he remains one dimensional and irritating. Some of the characters behaved in a way that raise questions that have never been answered. Questions of ethics which were left hanging in the air with no answers.

"Coming out" situation has been done in the past in many films. One example which come to my mind is "Edge of Seventeen", which was warm and has its heart in the right place."Ma Vraie vie à Rouen" is anything but warm. It left me cold and I could not relate to any of the characters in the film. When you think about it failed in the most important thing in a film. The ability to move the audience and make him care about the characters, their story and their emotions.

I have read some of the comments and I am wondering whether we have seen the same film. I think that people are more forgiving towards this film than they would have been if this film has been made somewhere else.Because as a film it doesn't hold, maybe as a written essay, but as a film it a complete failure.

Beauty and Intimacy: The Means Can Be An End In Itself

[thomasdosborneii · 12 July 2003]

I'm not normally one to care so much about film technique or movie technology, the story or the characters are what usually drive my interest. However, this is the third film I have seen that was filmed using Digital Video (the other two were Barbet Schroeder's "Our Lady of the Assassins" and "Manic", both of which I have also reviewed here on IMDb) and I have come to realize that I like this style of movie-making very, very much. I might go so far as to say that the means may actually be the ends, although all these films have also given so much more than just an appealing technique. But to just simply feel that much closer and more intimate with beautiful and appealing people, regardless of their problems or whatever they are going through, is a pleasure just by itself.

This film really could have been a video journal of a teenage ice skater, one who was, at least, quite skilled with the camera, and, in fact, throughout the film, I simply believed that such a video journal is what it actually was. Living in Los Angeles like I do where so many are would-be filmmakers, and at a time when so many kids have video cameras and are so often putting them in your face or surreptitiously filming you (and themselves), it would not be far-fetched that an ice skater as disciplined and talented as the actor in the film (genuinely a second-place holder in a French figure-skating championship) could also develop skill in this other artistic medium...as, indeed, successfully done by the skater Jimmy Tavares who also demonstrated his notable acting ability in this film.

I found the video technique fascinating as, appropriately, an intimate visual expose of the coming of age of a character in a FILM, just like a diary or personal letters would be in a BOOK. It was as if Etienne, the ice skater, wanted to objectify his life by recording his activities and those of the other people who interacted with or were of interest to him in such a way that he could then step aside and see his life from the outside.

It helped a lot that the boy, Etienne, was so beautiful, as was his whole family and the people associated with him, and his personality, as was theirs, was also so charming and humorous. It was not boring or meaningless to be with these people for a year (film time). In fact, I myself, not only want to buy my own video camera and start filming myself and all the people in my life, but I also wished all the people in my life were French! And the video camera with such great depth of field picks up so many more images in a scene that one does not normally see in a movie, and this quality added to the magnitude of the experience. For example, as Etienne would be filmed skating around in his practice arena, metro trains would go speeding by outside the arena's window with perfect clarity, adding the rhythm and beauty of their motion with that of the skater gracefully doing his swirls and spins.

But all this intimacy and beauty in the camera work does not overshadow the fact that something is supposed to be happening with these characters, and, as far as I am concerned, there was no disappointment there. There were times when Etienne's subjects rebelled against his intruding in their life with his camera, and yet in the end the only one really intruded into was Etienne himself, who got particularly nervous or upset when others used his camera, but he was at the same time quite willing to film himself when he was the one at the controls.

Inexorably, the story does move to the conclusion that must have been what had been motivating Etienne the whole time, and it was here that his good acting ability was revealed to be great. As appealing as Etienne's character had always been (despite his occasional anger or bad moods), upon achieving his self-realization, some subtle dark filter or cloud seemed to have been removed from his character and he then radiated a light that was several notches brighter than what had been expressed before. I almost would have thought that a filter had been removed from the camera lense, but this new light really was from within Jimmy Tavares, himself. And that what he came to understand about himself is nowadays understood to not necessarily be all that unusual or spectacular, for him, alone, of course, it certainly would matter very much and since we had been so close to him throughout the movie, it mattered to us, too.

I could have watched so much more, but in this movie, the climax was also the denouement--as sudden as a camera can stop, or, more importantly, START (controlled with a simple pressing of a button on a remote control), so, too, are there sudden stops and starts in the life of the character effected, where what was before has now been severely EDITED, and the personal DEPTH OF FIELD is now so much greater.

Skating Splendor

[donwc1996 · 10/10 · 6 September 2014]

Okay, if you like figure skating this film is for you, but if you do not like figure skating then this film is not for you. There is a lot of figure skating in this film because the male lead happens to be a professional figure skater as well as an actor although based on what I found here he has never made another film, which is too bad because he is very good and very handsome and also very engaging. The reviews here are mixed but I found the film immensely enjoyable because the male lead is such a good skater and the premise of the story quite interesting. In fact all the male leads in the film are very handsome and so the film is very enjoyable to look at. The ending is not only a surprise but a really nice way to complete the male lead's personal journey which his use of a video camera documents in a very interesting way. The title of the film is quite accurate and as the male lead films his life the movie unfolds slowly but completely.

This Movie is Merde!

[Imhotep77 · 1/10 · 12 August 2005]

Talk about a movie about nothing. I don't usually feel this strongly about a movie but I cannot advise against seeing this movie more. It is like a film school project that probably won't even get a good grade. Too many long scenes of the outdoors and people smiling derangedly into the camera, and walking, and staring blankly into space, and skating and talking about absolutely nothing of importance. Granted, if you're an ice skating fan, the practice session is marginally interesting but this is not a movie about how to do a triple toe loop! There is just too much meaningless garbage. It might be a truthful recreation of what a real teenage might film with his first vidcam but that does not equate a good movie. Most of what regular people put on their vidcam is not fit for friends or family to see much less a paying audience. Apparently, the filmmakers think otherwise. As a coming out story, the movie conveys nothing about the inner thoughts or feelings of the character; neither does the character verbally tell us about how he feels, if he's struggling with it or anything. To say anymore of this movie is a waste of time. Avoid it at all cost.

Faux found footage that should've stayed unfound

[ofumalow · 4/10 · 1 May 2020]

I've really liked some of this duo's films, been unimpressed by others, but this was the only one that seemed like a waste of time and effort. Not that it's bad, exactly, just that there's so little point to it. The gimmick is that the teenage aspiring-figure-skater protagonist (played by an actual teenage aspiring figure skater) is given a vidcam for his birthday, then proceeds to film everything and everyone around him. Which is exactly as boring as that sounds.

This movie ends up in that "found footage" trap where the content has to be psuedo-random and mostly uneventful enough to sustain the illusion of being "real," yet professional actors are used, so that illusion is never convincing-we're obviously watching performers pretending to be "awkward" and "natural" on camera. The lead Etienne is OK but not very interesting or charismatic; his best friend is a bit more appealing. This is supposedly a "coming out" story, but despite our hero proclaiming early on that this is the year he will lose his virginity, nothing happens on that front-not even flirting-until the very end. Indeed, the only thing that really "happens" is that the lead annoys everyone by insistently filming everyone all the time, even when they explicitly ask him not to. It's a miracle his best friend tolerates this as long as he does.

This is just one more proof that unless you have a very, very good reason for using the "found footage" gimmick (as in, say, the "Paranormal Activity" series), it's better to simply do a conventionally scripted and shot narrative. Better for viewers, at least. Or in this case, it might also have been possible/better to do a documentary about the lead's real life. Landing somewhere in between, "My Life on Ice" isn't as shapeless as watching someone else's home movies, but it's still pretty tedious as fictional entertainment. Unless you find the lead particularly attractive or relatable, there's nothing much to hold attention. Within its chosen limitations it's a decently-crafted movie, but a failed experiment that doesn't reward the effort it took to make it-or that it takes to watch it.

A year in the life of a handsome ice skater boy

[liveheroes · 25 March 2003]

Some critics say this movie isn't dealing about anything. That's true. It just deals about a 16 year old ice skater who gets a videocamera and films his life over one year. He's preparing for an ice skating championship, his best friend wants to be an actor is is having one girlfriend after the other, his history professor is starting a relationship with his mother and he comes to terms with being gay. That's not revolutionary, no. But it's nice. I guess the critics who did not like this movie, were not charmed by the debuting actor Jimmy Tavares who is great. (he's a real ice skating champion and gives a daring performance). He will remind people of Jamie Bell in Billy Elliott. Maybe the two can star together in a movie! If you liked Drole De Felix and Billy Elliott, you'll like this one as well.

It's not so much that it's bad. It's just pointless

[aharon-izraeli · 2/10 · 18 December 2021]

Half way through I just came here to see what other people were saying about this and I'm afraid I have to concur with the nay waters on this one. It's slow, difficult to watch because of the faux home made amateur shtick and you never become invested in the characters as there doesn't seem to be any point to anything, let alone a plot. This, in the end, comes off as one of those family home movies that the entire family groans when your Dad threatens to show, so why on earth would a total stranger have any interest in watching it? Truth is, he wouldn't, neither did I. Total failure from my point of view of view and I've never done this to a movie here before but I give it one star, only because there's no way to give it a minus ten stars.

Déception

[mtsinara · 2/10 · 2 October 2021]

The movie is not good. I had thought that the movie might be a good story showing competition between skaters and mutual attractions, etc. But, instead, the film shows barely anything about skating, very little attractions between anyone except perhaps mother and son, and attractions that could have been interesting, if pursued, are briefly glossed over and go nowhere. Take your chances if you want to be bored. I would not recommend wasting time on this film.

Appendix to portrait by indirection

[sandover · 20 September 2008]

I take my comment to be an appendix to the "portrait by indirection" comment;one question though: isn't his geography teacher exactly like his mother's paramour?

That said, I really enjoyed the ironic clin d'oeil to the nouvelle nouvelle vague territory, when our hero Etienne kicks his best friend Ludo into assuming grins that portray "angst", "happiness", etc, as a promising actor, all in mocking succession; I would even go that far as to claim that it was intended as an irony-a-clef towards Louis Garrel's usual persona! Or the subtlety of turning cinema verite into something else.

And mostly I enjoyed the almost effortless and sudden passage of the triply difficult portrayal of what happens in the end: Etienne surely contemplates suicide when he leaves his camera at the Falaises and stands at the edge - why? Was it the humiliating instance of his 'stepfather' as he calls him, even though and because he desires him, starts to strip, then retracts his - was it an offer, albeit a subconscious one, or the usual unaffected and brutal masculine perplexity facing intimacy? We can certainly hear an edge in Etienne's voice even as he firmly, and perhaps for the first time standing for himself (and his camera), continues filming that lewd scene. Or was it remorse because of the accident?

But quicker than our questions we see a handsome new face staring into Etienne's camera, and filming him without his usual uneasiness when shot by another; a slight, unconvincing protest as he rushes to his new face because, as this, his first lover tells him, in a kind of french idiom, he will change his face after he will have made love, and as they start having fun, Etienne no longer needs his camera, nor do we. The end. After all the straining footage of his, finally, not-so-true life in Rouen, we just see something flickering past us: no more who this guy is, or what he does just to keep the empty suspense go on, but we pass to something secretive that we don't witness, his true life in Rouen! That, for me, keeps this film from turning into a trick: it remains true as a portrait where the line between what is spontaneous and what is premeditated remains blurred, as perhaps in adolescence and its seemingly eternal waiting of the real life to begin. Just where we thought real life means action, well, it just is a secret.