Love Behind Bars Explored In French Film “The Lost Boys”
The Lost Boys (also known as Le Paradis) is an intimate and touching love about two young boys in juvenile detention and is director Zeno Graton’s debut feature.
The French romance-drama stars Julien De Saint Jean as William and Khalil Ben Gharbia as Joe in a juvenile prison where physical contact is prohibited and their burgeoning affair carries a unique sense of intensity.
Love, longing and liberation
Graton’s film depicts the purgatory of a detention facility where 17-year-old Joe has been for the past six months. The weeks have dragged for Joe, trapped in place without visitors or friends, but the small embers of hope come to him by way of a judge who may or may not grant him freedom in three weeks’ time.
In the interim, a mysterious new inmate arrives and captures Joe’s attention. William is rumoured by the others to have stabbed a man and is covered in tattoos. Joe finds a connection with his new neighbour where he hadn’t been able to with any of the other boys.
Graton’s direction focusses on storytelling through the performances of Gharbia and Jean; delicate, fierce and passionate. Though the film approaches commentary about the cyclical nature of a failing judicial system, its core narrative heroes queer coming-of-age amid the bleakness.
