Cannes. "Father of My Children"

By David Hudson on 05/18/2009

[Updated through 5/25]

"Mia Hansen-Love's 2007 debut, 'All Is Forgiven,' movingly explored and ultimately reconciled the gulf between a separated father and daughter," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "In her follow-up, 'Father of My Children,' the French writer-director pushes this premise to less consoling extremes, patiently observing the devastating consequences of a dad's act of desperation. Marked by moments of remarkable stillness amid its emotional tumult, the film's classy, perceptive treatment of potentially maudlin material merits wider arthouse attention than it's likely to receive on local release in December. It confirms Hansen-Love as a talent worthy of a following on and beyond the fest circuit."

"The film not only has brains to spare, and considerable savvy about the cinema business, it's also guaranteed not to leave a dry eye in the house." Jonathan Romney in Screen: "The central character is unmistakably modelled on [Humbert] Balsan, who took his own life in 2005 after a career working with such illustrious directors as Youssef Chahine, Elia Suleiman and Lars von Trier. In the film's opening stretch, which plays almost as a breezy movie-biz comedy, Grégoire [Louis-Do de Lencquesaing] is shown on his daily round: chain-smoking, talking endlessly on his mobile and trouble-shooting various projects for his beleaguered company Moon Films, including a collaboration with a high-maintenance Swedish auteur. In the face of looming disaster, Grégoire gets by on charm, energy and unwavering faith in the tradition of the obscure art-house masterpiece."

"The film undergoes an abrupt change in point of view when Grégoire shoots himself." Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter: "Initially, the wife assumes center stage as she gamely tries to save her husband's company and to complete his projects. Then the story shifts to the eldest daughter (Alice de Lencquesaing), who is shocked to learn she has a half-brother she knew nothing about, then forms an attraction to a young filmmaker that suggests she is her father's daughter. At fade-out, one has too many questions though."

"Its a film apart in the films about filmmaking sub-genre," writes Ioncinema's Eric Lavallee.

An Un Certain Regard entry.

Update, 5/19: "The clarity and maturity of the film was, for me, a marvel - one of the jewels of the festival so far," writes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.

Update, 5/21: Scott Foundas in the LA Weekly: "In sharp relief to Hollywood's constant supply of mawkish dead child/parent weepies, Hansen-Løve's film - her second - casts its clear-eyed gaze upon the unpleasant business of lawyers, unpaid debts and everything else that must be reckoned with before anyone has the time to sit around grieving. (As one who has spent much of the past year settling my own father's untidy estate, I had many moments in which I sensed my life passing before my eyes.) Ultimately, the film renders tribute to Balsan's artistic vision (which supported films by the likes of Claire Denis, Youssef Chahine and Béla Tarr), to the many others who work for little personal gain to make the movies that broaden our cinematic horizons, and to the festivals, like Cannes, where we line up to see them."

Update, 5/22: "I meet director Mia Hansen-Løve, 28, very wan, pretty, and exhausted," writes David Phelps in The Auteurs' Notebook. "She's got about my favorite movie in Cannes, maybe because it's a movie where people know how to tell jokes and the kids remind me of ones I was playing with a couple months ago who wanted to feed me to alligators and would point to farmers and yell 'that guy looks like the guy we were drawing moustaches on in the newspaper!'"

Update, 5/25: Again, David Phelps in The Auteurs' Notebook: "Obviously, she's not the first to care about life beyond the frame - of the narrative, of the image - but unlike, say, Griffith, Tati or Renoir, whose characters are resolutely themselves despite the surrounding context, or Hou or Yang or Assayas (something of Hansen-Løve's mentor), whose characters are struggling to be themselves against the surrounding context, Hansen-Løve's characters can tailor themselves to a situation at hand and seize it. This is one reason why all the context at the edges counts."

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

[Photo: "Father of My Children," Les Films Pelléas, 2009]

Tags: Alice de Lencquesaing, Cannes 2009, Father of My Children, French Cinema, Humbert Balsan, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Mia Hansen-Love