‘Writing Life’ Venice Review: Claire Simon Captures Annie Ernaux in the Classroom

The veteran French filmmaker of both fiction and documentaries, Claire Simon, takes on a very specific subject in WRITING LIFE and develops it with remarkable depth. What she sets out to do here is examine how the work of celebrated French writer Annie Ernaux is read, understood, and discussed in French high schools. Placing her cameras inside classrooms and also conducting group interviews with students from different regions of the country—including French Guiana—Simon engages with teenagers, mostly girls, as they try to process what they’ve read of Ernaux and how it connects to their own lives.

Ernaux’s autobiographical work invites precisely that kind of personal connection. Written in a style she herself described as simple, flat, and stripped of dramatic flourishes, Ernaux’s books deal with rape, love affairs, troubled family histories, crime, divorce, motherhood, and other experiences that in one way or another resonate—or will eventually resonate—with her readers.

That is exactly what the students grapple with in a series of conversations that move from literary analysis to intimate reflection, often with a surprisingly strong sense of emotional intelligence. Whether in their use of everyday street language, their observations on class conflict, or their memories of difficult personal experiences, Ernaux’s words spark responses that reveal how deeply her work resonates with young women living in a very different time and social landscape.

Books such as The Years, Shame, A Girl’s Story, and Happening—among many others she has written—are central to the discussions around the now-octogenarian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. The film shifts between the students’ answers to their teachers and the conversations they carry on among themselves about Ernaux’s texts. It’s in those moments, especially, that the most honest connections emerge, as the girls (and the occasional boy—the groups are about 90% female) reflect on their experiences, their fears, and their uncertain futures.

In this way, the director of Our Body weaves a fascinating portrait that also, indirectly, speaks to the importance of education, literature, and teaching—institutions so often disparaged in recent years. Indeed, one could imagine that a body of work as raw, brutally honest, and questioning as Ernaux’s might not be welcome in many schools today—especially by some parents. But in this regard France remains something of an island, a “cultural exception” that, from many other corners of the world, can only inspire envy.