La Vie de Jésus

Freddy lives with his mother Yvette in Bailleul. She runs the  » Au Petit Casino  » cafe, where a songbird club meets*. Freddy, who has a complex about his epileptic fits, for which he is being treated at a special clinic in Bailleul, spens much of his time hanging out with his buddies. They’re just 20 year-old country boys who have had little schooling and are already chronically unemployed, spending their days on their souped-up mopeds. Fred has a girl – his love – the beautiful Marie, a supermarket cashier. They often make love at Fred’s, where his mother minds her own business. Fred never sets foot in the home of Marie’s folks, who live up the street – they remain out front for hours on end, making out on the sidewalk. They often stay pressed against one other : he seated on his moped, Marie standing against him, not talking for periods of time, as if they were praying. Several times a day, Freddy and his pals, Miche, Gégé, Robert and Quin, have races around town and on country roads on their mopeds – they even  » play chicken  » on a mysterious 205 GTI – and hold rites of strengh. Sundays, they venture as far as Dunkerque to bathe or parade in the municipal band. No much on brains, this Freddy, but nice. Fred is a simple kid, a country boy. He often looks pathetic, even though one can sense an energy, a force growing within him, what with that expression he sometimes has, the odd posture, the utterances, and the attitudes that he takes… This daily chronicle of Freddy’s life is the framework for a story that edges towards tragedy… * In northern France, chaffinches are entered into contests. Each player brings a chaffinch he has trained and scores the number of trills with chalk marks on a long piece of wood.