One Wild Moment 1977

Antoine, a hot-tempered Corsican with old-fashioned ideas about women, returns to the isolated family home on the island for a summer holiday with his 17-year-old daughter Louna, but without his wife. Instead, he brings along his old friend Laurent, who is divorced, and Laurent’s 18-year-old daughter Marie, a close friend of Louna.

While the two men anticipate quiet days in the countryside, the two girls dream of nonstop excitement at the discos. Louna, however, longs for a grand romance with someone real and sets her sights on Laurent. After they share a few drinks, he gives in to the moment, and she goes for a midnight swim, naked. (Antoine is later revealed to have been with an attractive woman from a pancake stall as well.)

Feeling guilty toward Louna, toward her parents, and toward his own daughter, Laurent tries to halt the escalating relationship. But Louna’s passion only deepens, and when she is finally turned away from Laurent’s bedroom, she confesses to her father that she has been seeing an older man—yet she refuses to name him. Enraged, Antoine bolts into a frenzy, loading a shotgun and insisting that Laurent help him track down the “rat” who has ruined his daughter. After Antoine assaults a gay DJ, Laurent realizes he must come clean.

He does so while the two men are alone in the woods hunting wild boar. The two girls, who have since reconciled after Louna stopped sleeping with Laurent, return at dawn from a disco to find their fathers battered but oddly calm, as if the tension between generations has settled into a tense, uneasy restraint. The island summer closes with this uneasy détente lingering over the family as they face the consequences of desire, secrecy, and the fear of losing control.