AllMovie

The Larrieu brothers, who have directed numerous films together, concentrate on summer in this feature, the title of which means 'The End of Summer' in English. Every image of the film evokes summer. The eight-minute red herring in the prologue, used to lead the viewer into thinking what follows is a documentary on the summer holiday habits of the French, foreshadows the dramaturgical structure of the film. The focus is on the '68 generation and what has become of them. The mood is ironic, even provocative. Diana, a pretty blond woman and Eduard, a young man, meet at the station of Carcassone, a trendy tourist destination in the South of France. The two have not seen each other for a year, and Diane has been working on her thesis on the decline of socialism in the metropolis. They go to a little village in the mountains where Eduard spent his holidays as a child. There they meet Gilbert, an old friend of Eduard's mother who lives a communal and free-spirited life in a very old house with his daughters, goats, donkeys, and chickens. Sophisticated urban-academic Diane cannot digest rural food and gets sick, missing the opportunity to learn about the survival of socialism in the countryside. The film is a commentary on long-lost innocence, the fascination with provincial life, and the freedom to do what many others would like to do. Fin d'ete was in competition at the 1999 Mannheim International Film Festival .