From “The 400 Blows” to “The Florida Project,” kids have made fascinating cinematic subjects. Even if they’re working from scripts, there’s always the sense that they’re not entirely acting — that they can’t help but simply be themselves. The French director Bruno Dumont, a former philosophy professor who broke into Cannes nearly 30 years ago with his stark feature debut “The Life of Jesus,” has gravitated towards the raw naturalism of youngsters in the past. See “Li’l Quinquin” from 2014, and his musical curios about France’s patron saint “Jeannette,” (2017) and “Joan of Arc” (2019), all three of which find a strange, startling profundity in ragtag rugrats, say, debating theology or blankly witnessing acts of violence. 

Childhood, for Dumont, isn’t a stage of pure innocence, but a transition period where adult behaviors are tried on by little ones who don’t entirely know what they mean, or what the stakes are. Such is the case with his latest feature, “Red Rocks,” which involves children roughly between the ages of five and seven jumping off cliffs, riding mini motorcycles and partaking in gang warfare — or its pre-verbal equivalent. Long, static, mostly wordless takes will make these activities seem less eventful than they sound. Patient arthouse viewers, however, will find much to chew on here as a subtly cerebral film about small bodies unsettlingly, hilariously navigating a big, violent world.

Blending documentary-style observation and a Romeo and Juliet framing device, “Red Rocks” — which premiered in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight program — is scaled-back for Dumont compared to his 2021 Cannes competition entry “France,” a media satire starring Léa Seydoux, and last year’s “The Empire,” a critically divisive “Star Wars” spoof that premiered at the Berlinale.

Twitchy, blond tyke Géo (Kaylon Lancel) and his posse (Louise Podolski and Mohamed Coly) meet another trio of tinies while enjoying their favorite activity: scaling rock formations and taking (seemingly quite dangerous!) plunges into the ocean waters below. One member of the opposing crew, Eva (Kelsie Verdeilles), takes a liking to Géo, though their romance is hampered by Eva’s other boyfriend B (Alessandro Piquera). Not that romance, here, means anything beyond hand-holding and giggling while awkwardly staring into each other’s eyes. 

Cinematographer Carlos Alfonso Corral (co-producer of Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned”) alternates between fish-bowl closeups of the children’s faces and extreme wide shots of the craggy, coastal landscape. The effect is a bit like watching a tripped-out version of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” or “Thomas & Friends,” the Mediterranean setting — complete with arched viaducts and train tracks —miniaturized into a kind of fantasy playground for its band of tots to roam around freely.

A fair share of camera tricks and strategic angles make the kids’ climbing stunts look significantly riskier, though in a masterclass following the premiere, Dumont admitted to a degree of recklessness, choosing to shoot many of the film’s scenes in Italy as opposed to France, because of filming laws in the latter country pertaining to minors. In this Gallic Neverland, there’s not a safety helmet (or nervous parent) in sight, which admittedly adds to the film’s feral energy. Their twiggy legs and bony frames exposed in bathing suits, the kids do indeed look extra vulnerable within the film’s savage landscape. That’s precisely Dumont’s intention — freedom is fun and scary — but the choice is sure to raise eyebrows among critics of the director, who has historically been called out for his work with nonprofessional actors. 

The star-crossed lovers drama is mostly a justification to watch the kids play and pull weird and mesmerizing expressions, which turns repetitive over the film’s slim 90-minute runtime. Still, there’s amusement and electricity in their physicalities and wry antics. Working, again, at the boundary between the sublime and the silly, Dumont nevertheless manages to stake out new territory with this alien portrait of childhood. This may be something of a transitional work for a director who tends to shape-shift, but you’ve got to hand it to a guy unafraid to experiment.