Set in the sun-filled moodiness of southwestern France circa 1950, My Little Loves is a quiet coming-of-age tale, a theme that has been treated many times in French cinema but rarely with such detached grace and subtle emphasis on the more stoical side of adolescence. Eustache evokes a Bressonian performance from young Martin Loeb as Daniel, who moves from his happy village childhood living with his grandmother to a small-town adolescence living with his mother and her Spanish lover. Finances force him to quit school, leaving him plenty of time for idle exploration of the street life of the town. Daniel's tentative approaches to the female sex form a kind of chronology for the film. But despite its beguiling humor, this is no nostalgic look at sexual awakening; Daniel's passionless exploits are, realistically, youth's confusion masked in suppressed emotion. The beautiful photography is by Nestor Almendros.