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" Incidentally, the kids are far more knowledgeable than their years (in the very opening scene, they’re engaged in ‘professional’ tattooing on each other!) – the eldest, in particular, is himself keen on politics and bio-chemistry (he’s obsessed with firing a rocket); it was amusing but, at the same time, weird to hear him accuse his three year-old sibling of being a Communist (which the latter vehemently denies)! And it seems that the precociousness of Gravina’s children is not an isolated case, either, as another mother seeking new reading material at the bookshop for her kid (who, she says, is over the traditional Children’s Classics such as “Treasure Island” and “Around The World In 80 Days”) is suggested De Sade’s “Justine” since it’s the story of a little orphan girl! Things get even more out of hand: as the mother drifts farther away from her job (eventually being sacked) and duty at home into outright terrorism, the kids come up with their own violent ‘games’ – first by killing their pet cat when, as passenger of the rocket during its test flight, the ‘launch’ backfires and the rocket explodes; then, when the toddler is tragically drowned in the bath-tub! During the funeral (also attended by the father – an underused Philippe Leroy – and his new companion, who’s actually good friends with Gravina!), the eldest son sadistically reads aloud from an encyclopedia the effects of such a terrible death"