Sunday, April 27, 2008

Tout est Pardonné (All is Forgiven)


This acclaimed and award winner debut film by Mia Hansen-Løve possibly is a good movie with very good performances, slow pace and good cinematography, but perhaps because the story it tells and the way it was told, I didn’t enjoy it at all. This does not happen very often with French movies, but obviously it happens once in a while.

The movie story is told in three acts, the first is Vienna and shows us a young married couple with problems; the second act is Paris and show us the same young couple getting into irreconcilable problems and they split; the third and last act is called Pamela and starts 11 years after the couple split with the couple’s daughter Pamela finding that his father lives in Paris, so she’s resolved to see him.

Perhaps the best act is Pamela, as newcomer Constance Rousseau -that plays Pamela- performance is quite good for a fist time actor and interesting is to find that Hansen-Løve found her in the street and convinced her to participate in this movie. Also interesting is that Constance little sister Victoire plays the Pamela character as a child, and her other sister Eléonore is Alix, the girl that speaks with Pamela almost at the end. All three Rousseau sisters are non-actors and their performances suggest a future in cinema.

The movie was premiered at the 2007 Directors’ Fortnight, was nominated for Best First Film at the 2008 César Awards and won the Prix Louis Delluc for Best First Film (a tie with beautiful Naissance des Pieuvres).

Still, if you like French dramas perhaps you should give it a try.

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