Making a movie about from a child’s perspective that’s not aimed at kids must be a labor of love, since it’s not exactly the path to riches. Possibly that’s why so many of the ones I’ve seen have been so good. The recent Japanese film I Wish comes to mind. It may be worth mentioning that hardly any of them of are American. This Swiss drama, set in the mountains of the French-speaking west (and partly in English), is told from the perspective of Simon, who’s not yet a teen but already the primary breadwinner, sort of, in a household of two. Louise (Léa Seydoux), several years his senior, is inconsistently employed, and so Simon spends his spare time at the local ski lodge, nicking skis and related gear for resale to classmates, tourists, and anyone else with the amazingly colorful Swiss Francs.
Even without the surprise twist in the middle of the film, the relationship at the heart of the story is genuine and original. Louise should be a mother figure to Simon, yet he is, despite being a thief, arguably the more responsible one, and certainly the more resourceful. Yet when he sees a boy about his own age with his mother (Gillian Anderson), you can see that he longs for a more ordinary childhood. Yet there is a deep bond between Louise and Simon that would be unusual in ordinary siblings living with two parents. The writer-director, Ursula Meier, carefully avoids injecting melodrama into the story, and the ending may therefore come off as meandering or anticlimactic. Simon is still not a teen when the movie ends, so we don’t know his future, but this beautifully shot and well-acted film made me wonder about it.
IMDb link
viewed 11/8/12 7:30 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 11/8/12
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