That's how healthy people get sick. Serge Bozon is a critic, a director and simply a synephile, in a word, a child of the new wave. He put the traditions of the waves into the cinema without creating a parody.
The film "Fashion" introduces us to the story of what happened on campus: student Edward fell ill. No one, neither the doctor nor the psychologist, can determine the diagnosis. "Almost doesn't eat, doesn't talk, doesn't do anything." Paul and François are brothers, "military, that's their profession," who come to help heal their brother. A familiar conflict over the superiority of one brother over others. Edward is a universal favorite, moreover, a local hero. Only Paul, François and we do not know what heroism is. This question, like other events in the film, is shrouded in a halo of superficial mystery, a suspense similar to the calm before the storm, only in this case, a storm in a glass of water. Also in the film there are other characters - fashion. Four young guys, like the cover of a rock band record, only lack the RAF logo behind them. They are representatives of the current of the 60-70s, immigrants from the working class, who became dandies due to the growth of purchasing power due to the economic boom. This movement cultivated steepness and was snobbish towards the outside world. In accordance with this, the foursome coldly meets the brothers, but their attitude towards Edward is subordinate to general love and trepidation. Who is this Edward?
An unknown disease begins to disturb the brothers - the military, and then all, declared a general quarantine. The campus is limited to the walls of the hostel.
Brothers aimlessly spending time, create the appearance of care for the patient, but then there is an accident and... Healing happens every second. It becomes obvious, so only healthy people can get sick. Bozon, being an outsider in the new French cinema, from the left position, prescribes a diagnosis and a cure for healthy people. No sex, no lust, no violence, but an ordinary youthful love, or maybe just boredom.
Everything in this film is very simple. One-syllable sentences and repetitions in dialogues. Gestures and movements are subject to synchronicity. Dance, not dance, but stylization of body dynamics. The topics of conversations, reminiscent of Godrov’s traditional beautiful and about nothing. Acting is brought to illustration, despite the reliable transmission of emotions. Naive in its simplicity narrative. In a word, the impressionist landscape, where it is important how, not what. The film is devoid of history and experience, nostalgia for what is not in memory. Hence the consideration of a limited period of human life. Not a detailed study of the character, psychologicalism, but a glance thrown at a certain group, sharpened by the circumstances of time and place, but with a clear dose of psychologism and a metaphysics of presence - fiction comes out, in the good sense of the word. A non-participating attitude of an outside observer takes place. And, of course, French chic, in the mannered detached dialogues borrowed from Godard in style, in the faces of the heroes, only deliberately matched brothers, performed by Verdier and Bozon himself, which stand. The film is not a story, but a motive for further admiration.