Cocktail Molotov (1980)

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The sequel to the Diane Kurys's autobiographical PEPPERMINT SODA, COCKTAIL MOLOTOV stars Elise Caron as a restless French teenager, Anne, roaming through Europe during the politically tumultuous spring and summer of 1968. The film opens with Anne leaving her home in Paris after a violent argument… More The sequel to the Diane Kurys's autobiographical PEPPERMINT SODA, COCKTAIL MOLOTOV stars Elise Caron as a restless French teenager, Anne, roaming through Europe during the politically tumultuous spring and summer of 1968. The film opens with Anne leaving her home in Paris after a violent argument with her ambitious mother (Genevieve Fontanel) over Anne's working-class boyfriend, Fred (Philippe Lebas). She plans to travel to Israel with Fred to work on a kibbutz, but Fred backs out at the last minute and Anne sets off by herself. After she's gone, Fred has second thoughts, and, joined by his friend, Bruno (François Cluzet), he catches up to her in Venice. While there, they hear news accounts of the massive student-led political demonstrations in Paris. The trio wants to be part of the upheaval, and the same desire for meaningful, world-expanding experience that drove Anne from Paris in the first place now points her and her companions back home.While setting COCKTAIL MOLOTOV during one of the most cataclysmic eras of the 20th century, Kurys never allows the film's acute focus on the yearnings and disappointments of her young, searching protagonists to waver, resulting in a film that is both an engagingly free-spirited account of being on the periphery of world-altering political events and a universal tale of youth seeking adventure.