As little Franck talks about why he thinks adults are afraid of children’s sexuality, someone in the background rides by on a loud motorcycle. Franck turns his head to look. He’s nine, but his body language is that of a teenager: he wants to know what’s going on around him, to be on the scene, to not miss out, while he’s stuck talking to this documentary filmmaker. But at least he gets to talk about his sexual pursuits and libertine values. He tells the filmmaker that grown-ups are full of fear. Children should not be in school, Franck says into the camera. They should be out in the world, traveling around, experiencing joy.
“What do you imagine your life will be like when you’re older?” the filmmaker asks him.
“I’ll get home from work. My wife and I will take a shower together and soap each other’s bodies. A nice long, hot shower. Then we will dry each other. We will eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed. In bed, we will make love. It’ll be nice for both of us. The next day, it will be the same. Giusto?”
He says “giusto” throughout, to mean, Right? You with me? Understand? Giusto?
I wondered what had become of him, which is what we say of people who have made an ominous impression. If you wonder what became of someone and they turned out normal and undistinguished, it is disappointing. Asking what became of Franck could be suitably answered only with scenarios like:
Franck was killed in the commission of a bank robbery in Milan.
Or Franck works with the Catholic Church in sub-Saharan Africa, preaching abstinence.
Or Franck became a leftist insurgent in central-southwestern France, and masterminded the kidnapping of the Franco-Iberian subminister Pablo Platon y Platon, who was never seen again, his body never found, and Franck is now in prison, possibly for life.
