Palmarès du FIFEM 2011 – 14e édition

JURY ENFANTS

• Prix Place aux Familles
  de l’Arrondissement Rosemont-Petite-Patrie, accompagné d’une bourse de 2 000$ remis au réalisateur du meilleur long-métrage de la Compétition officielle :
  À pas de loup
  d’Olivier Ringer (Belgium/France 2011)
  Description du film
• Prix spécial du Jury
  décerné au coup de coeur du jury pour un long-métrage de la Compétition officielle :
  The magicians (Het geheim)
  de Joram Lursen (Holland 2010)
  Description du film

Fissures

Ecoute le temps

(France)

‘Fissures’ 

Pushing the audience’s suspension of disbelief to the limit, debut writer-helmer Alanta Kavaite’s « Fissures » has a documentary sound recorder figure out who killed her mother by using her skills to listen to sounds from the past. Pic plays as far-fetched as its premise indicates, though Kavaite deftly uses devices from the playbooks of French masters Henri-Georges Clouzot and Claude Chabrol as well as from Brian DePalma’s « Blow Out » to construct a mystery yarn with cinematic twists. Broad international theatrical play is a distinct possibility, with just-announced Yank remake (produced by Joe Dante and Elizabeth Stanley) upping its profile.Unsettling tone is quickly established as Charlotte (Emilie Dequenne, in her most impressive perf since her debut in the Dardenne Brothers’ « Rosetta ») and her mother (Ludmila Mikael) drive along a country road and hit a deer. Next seen, Charlotte is doing some location recording in a massive sulfur hot spring when she is notified that her mom’s been murdered.

As in any number of Chabrol films set in the countryside, Charlotte returns to her mother’s village to find a host of suspicious folk. Nasty neighbor Ms. Blanc (Nadia Barentin) is overheard telling her slow-witted son Jerome that she’s glad that Charlotte’s mother is « out of the way, » while organic farmer Julien (Mathieu Demy) appears to hold secrets, and town mayor and wife (Etienne Chicot, Eva Ionesco) carry the heavy whiff of bourgeois corruption.

Investigating cop Brenot (Gilles David) casts a wide net but can’t snag the murderer. Charlotte, though, grows more resourceful by the reel, as she accidentally hears sounds from the past while doing some recordings in her mom’s extremely creaky house.

Discovering she can hear past sounds by placing her mic at a particular spot in the house, Charlotte pieces together the various incidents leading up to the murder. Her rather bizarre method includes placing strings across the living space to physically map each sound from the past. What soon appears onscreen is a different kind of Charlotte’s web that fills the house.

As ridiculous as concept may be, it achieves some credibility by the sheer will of Dequenne’s extremely determined performance, and an elaborate series of flashbacks matching the sounds Charlotte picks up. A certain emotional gravitas also emerges, as the daughter learns more about a mom she barely knew, including how her work as a tarot card reader had set many in the village against her.

As she showed in « Rosetta, » Dequenne is a seriously filmic actor, intent on conveying her character’s feelings through looks and reactions. The rest of the cast tends to play a bit too broadly, but never to the point of breaking the suspenseful mood.

Still, unlike Chabrol’s socially acute mysteries or Clouzot’s terrifying tales, pic fairly dissolves the moment it’s over or upon any serious reflection. Nonetheless, it looks great, care of Dominique Colin’s earthy lensing and Francois Emmanuelli’s production design that creates its own kind of monster house.

Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

On the Sly

A pas de loup

(Belgium-France)

Tired of being ignored by her parents, a little girl hides in the woods in « On the Sly, » a charming leap into the mind of a child that offers rewards for kids and adults alike. A true family affair (multihyphenate Olivier Ringer cast his daughter Wynona in the lead), the pic is informed by forest-set fairy tales and perhaps even a bit of Mark Twain, conjuring a young girl’s perspective by almost exclusively using an interior monologue. The results are entirely winning and easily dubbable for maximum theatrical and DVD exposure across multiple territories.Every Friday evening, 6-year-old Cathy (Wynona Ringer) gets strapped into the backseat of the family car for the drive with her parents (Olivier Ringer, Macha Ringer) to their country house. Each time, once securely buckled, she’s ignored. Helmer Ringer captures the inner bargains kids make, the « if Mom notices me, then it means I’m important » sort of thing, focusing exclusively on Cathy’s p.o.v. (her parents’ heads are barely seen, or are seen only at a distance).

From the auds’ standpoint as much as from Cathy’s, her parents really do ignore her. When it’s time to go back to their home in Paris, Cathy lets the car door slam without her, and her folks drive off. Once they realize she’s not there and pull up to the house again, Cathy decides she’s better off in the woods rather than risk an unholy scolding.

As viewers of all ages automatically summon up memories of Hansel and Gretel or Jack and the Beanstalk, Cathy takes to the woods with unsqueamish determination, befriending a fish, building a small hut for herself and hiding from search parties. Things don’t change until her father finally starts thinking with his daughter’s kind of imagination.

Ringer’s decision to focus everything on the little girl and her viewpoint pays off in spades, conjuring a world of the imagination grounded in reality — no fairies, no talking animals. His woods bear the possibility of small dangers but no glowering glades, so even the smallest tots won’t be frightened. They will, however, recognize their own particular methods of reasoning, and the yearning all kids feel for parents as playmates as well as nurturers.

Young Wynona Ringer is delightful, unaffectedly intelligent and eagerly plunging into the spirit of adventure. Widescreen visuals are classically attractive, whether lensing Paris at night or the sylvan brooks and hollows of the forest; the format’s emphasis on the horizontal was the perfect choice to replicate a child’s perspective. Unfortunately, the digital projection reduced tonal warmths and added an unwanted sharpness. Music slightly swells up at times, but avoids pushing sentimentality.

Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com