Pompeii’s Echo in Teens: “La Gradiva” Debuts

Cinematographer Marine Atlan’s directorial debut “La Gradiva” follows French high school students on a train trip to Naples—where Pompeii’s layers of destruction meet Freud and surrealism through a story of desire, fear, and hard-earned honesty. With Colas Qui

When the rowdy troupe of French high schoolers finally boards a train bound for Naples, it feels like a simple class trip. A handful of teenagers wait for their college acceptance letters. They’re headed toward Pompeii’s ruins and the long shadow left by Mount Vesuvius.

But “La Gradiva,” Marine Atlan’s directorial debut, treats that journey like something far more dangerous than sightseeing. As the trip progresses—day after day. close quarters and mounting pressure—each student’s private world starts to boil over. Their fears. desires. ambitions. loneliness. dreams. and the intensity of messy teenage feelings are kept close. not mocked or smoothed out. And by the time the group is trapped in the same rhythms, the tension feels volcanic.

The film’s title nods to Wilhelm Jensen’s 1902 novel “Gradiva: a Pompeian fantasy.” In Jensen’s story. an archaeologist becomes obsessed with a bas-relief of a woman he sees in an Italian museum. Imagining she was among those who died after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. he names her la Gradiva—“she who walks.” Jensen’s novel later inspired a psychological reading by Freud and became a popular subject of Surrealist art. and Atlan pulls that thread directly into the movie’s emotional architecture.

Like the novel and the works it influenced. “La Gradiva” moves through the layers beneath consciousness—where desires and fears and anger build until they can’t be contained. It’s also about the version of ourselves we project onto others. and what happens when our surface-level understanding turns into judgment.

The students are introduced as fully realized people—smart and sensitive. capable of cruelty. raw in the way only teenagers can be. Their teacher, Mercier (Antonia Buresi), leads the trip with a purpose that’s starting to flicker. Her desire to inspire passion in her students is clearly fading in her late career. Before the train even arrives in Naples. Toni (Colas Quignard) shares a family fable illustrated by a faded old photograph: his grandmother standing with help in front of a grand manor. staring across the image at Toni’s grandfather. who stands with his family in an expensive suit.

In Toni’s telling. his grandparents fell in love immediately—a “coup d’foudre.” When his grandmother became pregnant with Toni’s mother. his grandfather’s family disowned him. Then. before the lovers could run away together. Toni’s grandfather was killed in the 1980 earthquake that shook Naples—allegedly destroying the family manor too. After that, Toni says, his grandmother left for France and never dared to love anyone else again.

For Toni, it’s more than a story. It’s a guiding light—one that also collides with what he can’t fully admit out loud. He has a penchant for Grindr hookups, and his boisterous charm covers a fragile heart. Everyone can see the shape of his feelings for James. but the object of his affection doesn’t always catch the same signals. James (Mitia Capellier-Audat) is introduced in a post-coital haze on the train with Angela (Hadya Fofana). their tryst observed by Toni.

That isn’t the only chain of watching in the movie. James is also observed by Suzanne (Suzanne Gerin). a bookish girl with a belief that she belongs among the “unfuckable” women—women who. in her mind. make other women “fuckable” by comparison. In a dream sequence. Suzanne imagines herself as la Gravida and also takes James’ place in his train tryst with Angela. The sequence loops the film back toward the Freudian and surrealist impact of Jensen’s novel. turning desire into something both psychological and theatrical.

Atlan and co-writer Anne Brouillet build the movie with empathy and grace. steering it away from typical high school movie tropes. Even as the characters’ futures loom and their present lives get tighter, the film doesn’t flatten them into stereotypes. It keeps returning to the same tight question: what happens when tension has nowhere to go?.

Working with co-cinematographer Pierre W. Mazoyer. Atlan wraps “La Gradiva” in a warm. sun-dappled glaze—film grain and all—placing it in a world that feels adjacent to fable-like collaborations such as those by Alice Rohrwacher and her longtime DP Hélène Louvart. Atlan’s characters live in a land that seems unstuck in time. even while the movie anchors them in timeless tales of love and friendship and in the economics and socio-political realities that pull dreams down to earth.

Mercier tries to keep her students engaged with lessons about volcanology and art history. pushing for the relevance of Pompeii’s deaths even after centuries. The class scenes land beside after-dinner discussions that are more alive, and more honest. The past may not yet connect for these young people, but the concerns of the present absolutely do.

One riveting sequence captures that collision: Mercier watches as her pupils debate the veracity of meritocracy in late capitalist society. Some of the kids spout privileged nonsense parroted from their well-to-do parents; others argue from lived experience, pointing to what contradicts the theory.

That back-and-forth is where Atlan and Brouillet’s sharp script shows its teeth, supported by a young cast—mostly newcomers—who can hold both dialogue-heavy scenes and moments of silence, reflection, and observation.

The biggest discovery is Colas Quignard as Toni. The film tasks him with carrying the most explosive story arc. and he does it with a natural gravitas at first. like someone who’s always known he’s the coolest kid in school. But Toni isn’t untouchable. He’s sensitive—everything lands on him. As his fantasies about his grandparents slowly erode. the movie exposes harsh economic truths about the relationship between the aristocracy and those who serve it. Toni loses his belief in love at first sight. He folds into himself, his swagger fading while his loud mouth drifts toward silent contemplation.

By the end, Quignard mostly eschews dialogue. His defeated body language becomes the language of the film—speaking volumes for anyone watching. His defeated expression and the way he moves through his own decisions carry a kind of urgency the other characters don’t fully notice until it’s too late.

At two hours and twenty minutes, “La Gradiva” casts a hypnotic spell. Its running time flies by. and as it barrels toward its melancholic end. the audience is left breathless—wanting more time with these kids. hoping they’ll be OK. The film also understands something uncomfortable: life keeps delivering knocks. and losing love can be monumental. even before you know what comes next.

“La Gradiva” recently won the top prize at the Cannes sidebar Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week). It premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. 1-2 Special will release it at a later date.

La Gradiva Marine Atlan Cannes 2026 Semaine de la Critique Critics’ Week Colas Quignard Pompeii Mount Vesuvius French teen drama Freud surrealism meritocracy Grindr hookups