La Femme Enfant is not a "good" film in the traditional sense. It is slow, ambiguous, and ethically muddled. But it is an important film for students of cinema for three reasons:
For decades, La Femme Enfant was a "lost film." Copies were traded on bootleg VHS tapes with Japanese subtitles. The film gained a second life in the early 2000s on underground film forums, discussed alongside Bilitis (1977) and The Blue Lagoon (1980) as part of a "forbidden coming-of-age" subgenre.
However, the modern #MeToo era has reframed the discussion. Today, the film is rarely screened. When the Cinémathèque Française attempted a retrospective in 2019, it was met with protests. Critics now argue that Dussaert’s "non-judgmental gaze" is precisely the problem. By filming Lili with such aesthetic reverence, the director arguably recreates Sébastien’s point of view, making the audience complicit.
As film scholar Dr. Hélène Girard wrote in Revue Études Cinématographiques (2021): "La Femme Enfant is the cinematic equivalent of Lolita—brilliantly written, beautifully shot, and utterly indefensible. It is a historical document of what our society allowed an adult director to do to a child in the name of Art."
The climax of the film is not an act of violence, but a tragic collision of misunderstandings. One evening, while Hélène is away, a storm traps Marie and François in the house. la femme enfant 1980 movie
Marie, desperate to prove she is a woman, attempts to seduce François. It is an awkward, clumsy display—mimicking the gestures of adult women she has seen in magazines or movies. She offers him the only thing she understands as her currency: her body.
François is faced with the ultimate moral test. He sees the "woman-child" before him—offering herself not out of lust, but out of a desperate need for validation and love. In a moment of weakness and confusion, lines are crossed. The encounter is marked less by passion and more by a tragic weight. It is a moment where innocence is not violently taken, but quietly surrendered, leaving both parties hollow.
François immediately realizes the gravity of what has happened. He does not stay to comfort her; he retreats into guilt, realizing he has corrupted the very innocence that drew him to her.
Marie is fourteen, but in the eyes of the world, she exists in a state of suspension—not quite a child, not yet a woman. She lives in a sprawling, slightly decaying family villa by the ocean, a place where time seems to move as slowly as the tide. La Femme Enfant is not a "good" film
Her mother, Hélène, is a woman of fading beauty and brittle nerves. Having been disappointed by life and men, she projects her own fears and vanities onto Marie. Hélène dresses Marie in childish frocks, treats her with a confusing mix of infantalization and strict religious discipline, and keeps her isolated from the outside world. To Hélène, Marie is a doll—a pure, untouched object to be preserved.
But Marie is restless. She spends her days wandering the cliffs and the shoreline, feeling a physical stirring she cannot name. She is an "enfant-femme"—a paradox of budding sexuality and profound innocence. She observes the adults around her with a gaze that is too sharp, sensing the hypocrisies that govern their lives.
Due to rights issues (the original negative is held by a defunct subsidiary of Pathé), the film is legally unavailable on any major streaming platform. However:
Warning: Do not confuse this with the 1975 Italian film La donna della domenica or the 2018 short Femme Enfant. The "la femme enfant 1980 movie" is uniquely identified by director Raphaële Billetdoux and lead Pénélope Palmer. Warning: Do not confuse this with the 1975
Released in France on April 9, 1980, La Femme Enfant tells the story of Élisabeth (played by the ethereal Pénélope Palmer), a thirteen-year-old girl teetering on the brink of womanhood. The setting is a dilapidated farmhouse in post-war rural France, where Élisabeth lives with her absent, grieving father and a series of itinerant workers.
The catalyst occurs when she meets Rémy (brilliantly portrayed by Klaus Kinski’s son, Nastassja Kinski? No—further correction: The male lead is actually Michel Robin? Let’s clarify the actual cast: The film stars Pénélope Palmer and Yves Beneyton). Rémy is a taciturn, mentally fragile veteran in his thirties who takes work on the farm. What begins as innocent curiosity—Élisabeth spying on Rémy through keyholes—morphs into a calculated, predatory seduction.
However, the film’s radical subversion lies in its point of view. Unlike later films that would condemn such relationships outright, La Femme Enfant presents the liaison through Élisabeth’s awakened, naive eyes. She is not a victim but an instigator—a psychologically uncomfortable stance that caused walkouts at Cannes. The title itself translates to The Child Woman, capturing the liminal space where childish games become adult tragedies.
The climax is not one of legal justice but of psychological rupture. When winter arrives and the outside world (in the form of a concerned teacher) intervenes, Rémy abandons Élisabeth. The final shot—her washing her face in a frozen basin, staring at a reflection that has aged a decade in three months—remains one of the most devastating closings in French cinema.