Plot Summary for
This Special Friendship (1964) More at IMDbPro »Les amitiés particulières (original title)

THIS SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP tells of the tender relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and the upperclassman who is the object of his desire. All set in the rigid atmosphere of a Jesuit run school. Written by Jim Stark

"Special friendships" are youthful relationships with homoerotic overtones, and this film explores them in the setting of a strict French Roman Catholic boys' boarding school in the 1920s. The faculty are ever alert, depriving the students of all privacy. When a vulnerable fifteen-year old boy, motivated variously by jealousy, subservience and fear, or genuine good intentions, co-operates with his teachers' campaigns to repress all suggestion of romance or impropriety in his own and others' friendships, he betrays everyone most important to him. Based on the novel "Les Amities Particulieres" by Roger Peyrefitte. Written by Paul Emmons <pemmons@wcupa.edu>

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