Starring Antoine L'Ecuyer. In French with English subtitles. Rated PG. Plays Friday to Monday, May 15 to 18 at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que

The cinematic Zeitgeist is a strange and wonderful thing. What else could explain why French filmmakers Claire Denis and Leos Carax should both have released features in 1999 based on radically updated Herman Melville texts?

In a similar vein, what other reason can there be behind the fact that the two best Québécois films of last year pivoted on the same plot point: dissatisfied mothers abandoning their families in the late 1960s during the few sweltering months when summer overwhelms Quebec?

It is very much to Philippe Falardeau's credit that his third feature is more than able to hold its own against veteran Léa Pool's Maman est chez le coiffeur. Working from two novels by Bruno Hébert, Falardeau is far less interested in the problems of his adult characters than he is in the troubled soulscapes of their children. Indeed, the true hero of C'est pas moi, je le jure! is Léon (Antoine L'Ecuyer), a suicidal, possibly schizophrenic break-and-enter artist who dreams of following his absent mother to Greece when he isn't causing trouble or figuring out how to rescue his equally youthful friend Léa from the clutches of her creepy, boozy uncle.

It's 1968, and traditional Québécois society is coming apart at the seams, but for preteens these changes are experienced only indirectly. Falardeau manages to tell both stories with delicacy and tact, refusing to take simplistic sides with attitudes and actions that could, with equal ease, be described as liberating or selfish, magical or mad.

Real life doesn't fit into simple categories, and neither does this film.