what do you see?

Hmm...no, doesn't sound like I'm missing much. Admittedly, the different responses I've gotten, the level of controversy and disagreement, probably mean I'd have to see it myself to "make up my mind" - but neither the film's defenders NOR the film's attackers have made it sound appealing, so I'm officially shelving this one in the "Life's too short" category. Everyone just forget I asked.


except ctigerlass, who no doubt thinks this is my ingenious way to defend the movie...

Lara Wendel was born in 1965 this film was released in 1977 she turned 12 during filmimg. Eva Ionesco was 11 at the time of filming. The film was distributed by Seven Star Film who had connections to a company producing pornography

You are remembering it incorrectly. Either that or the recent 'uncut' German dvd is cut - which is unlikely.

The "first scene" as you call it happens like this:

He grabs her man-handles her to the ground (in the forest) and ties her hands to sticks in the ground. Both are fully clothed. He goes to sit nearby to watch her. A snake comes along and she panicks and screams, he does nothing, snake goes away. End of scene

10 mins later in the film (a few days later in film time) they are in the cave, to escape the rain, they lie down together, he undresses her, she is compliant. his head goes down on her (off camera) - she likes it. He lies atop her (top half showing on camera), at this point she has second thoughts says "no, it hurts" but he asks her to go along with it, saying, it will be ok, she goes along with it and has no more objection. She did not persist in her objection she did not raise her voice in fear or anger, and this scene could never be described as rape, except statutory rape, but as he is about 16 that would probably not be the case.

A further 10 mins later (runtime) she (sitting on the forest floor) offers him her breasts, he pushes her backwards pulls down her underwear, she screams, says she doesn't like it (too rough), he stops and goes away.

Quoting you: "The first scene of "simulated sex" as the defenders like to call it, is a 16 year old boy throwing a 14 (some say 12) year old girl on the ground, ripping off her clothes, and raping her, all in full view of the camera. The "plot" is supposed to be about how little kids can be "cruel" to each other.
The movie isn't boring, its repulsive."

Well, that's fully of baloney. You are really trying to slant the movie in order to depict it as nothing more than sex scenes (of which there certainly are some in the movie), so that you can say that it's merely a sex movie about kids and nothing more.

It's far from that.

First of all, in terms of that particular scene. There is not "thowing" a girl to the ground, or "ripping" off her clothes, or "raping" her. Each one of those points you just made are false, and they show that you're not interested in accuracy, but merely trying to enforce a viewpoint upon people who don't know any differently.

The scene starts with them in a cave and the girl is cold and scared. The boy holds her in his arms. And this particular boy (of 17 years old in real life; girl of 11 years old in real life) is also the one she has feelings for. She really likes him (can't say for sure if she loves him, but by the end of the movie, it's clear that she definitely loves him).

So, here they are, she's cold and scared, inside of a cave that they went in to explore, and he's holding her and they lean up against a wall of the cave and they each "sink" down slowly to the floor, her in his arms and she's feeling comforted, while doing so. They are both then sitting/leaning back against the wall of the cave. He then talks to her and proceeds to start slowly unbuttoning her blouse. She first asks, "What are you doing?" being somewhat surprised at his advances. But, then she quickly and easily acquiesces to his advances by simply gazing into his eyes (and I'm sure we've all seen those sorts of gazes into the others' eyes...). He continues to slowly and methodically unbutton her blouse, pulls it back and exposes her breasts fully. He then proceeds to remove the rest of her clothing. She is simply watching him and looking intently at him, with loving gazes.

He then gets naked himself, after she's fully naked. And he gently caressing her breasts, very slowly, moving back and forth. She's enjoying it, from her breathing and her small noises. He then moves down to her genitals and proceeds to give her some enjoyment there, and she comments on how it feels to her and that it feels warm and she likes it. He then proceeds to have her move her hand on his genitals, which she acquiesces without a word and does so. And then he moves himself on top of her and she says to "Be gentle" when he does so. He assures her that he will be gentle and says that they both will like it.

It then goes to show her feelilng an initial bit of discomfort (at apparently being penetrated) and she says it hurts (obviously the case if it was her first time). And then he continues and she settles into it not hurting her any more and she's shown to be enjoying it, and then after a few moments of that, the scenes ends in fade to black.

That's very specifically how the scene goes. And from that, people can see that you've misrepresented it, apparently because you want to characterize it as something different than it actually is -- whatever the nudity is and whatever the simulated sex is (obviously they are not going to do real sex in these movies, without a doubt).

Now -- in "real life" as it is today in junior high and high schools, the kids are not even that feeling and kind and gentle as is portrayed in those scenes. It gets to be a lot more brutal and insistent (as you try to indicate that this movie is here in this scene). What you describe falsely for this movie is "actually" happening in real life with junior high kids right now, today. On top of that, these same kids are filming themselves and putting these flim clips out on the Internet showing people what they're doing (not professional films, mind you, just people filming people). It seems that almost everyone is getting into this thing of fliming the "real thing".

And so, while this movie is simulated and more gentle and kind in the depiction of this particular scene -- today they are not simulating it, but showing the "real sex" with junior high students, on the Internet, and it is more forceful, plus a lot of the girls drunk and doing it with several guys at once. This movie is so tame, compared to what is happening today in real life, that it seems that people would be more concerned about reality today, than a movie of 30 years ago.