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Aime ton père
2002 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Jacob Berger
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Script: Pascal Barollier, Jacob Berger, Edward A. Radtke
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Photo: Pascal Marti
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Music: Jean-Claude Petit
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Cast: Gérard Depardieu (Leo Shepherd),
Guillaume Depardieu (Paul),
Sylvie Testud (Virginia),
Julien Boisselier (Arthur),
Noémie Kocher (Marthe),
Hiam Abbass (Salma),
Frédéric Polier (Andre),
Pierre-Alexandre Crevaux (Paul,
Age 8),
Pippa Schallier (Virginia,
Age 11),
Johanna Mohs (Pippi),
Jacques Frantz (Antoine Levy),
Sten Eirik (Sven Boland),
Martin Forsström (Sailor)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 103 min
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Aka: A Loving Father; Honor Your Father
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Summary
Distinguished writer Léo Shepherd is to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Currently, Shepherd works on a farm in a mountain retreat with his partner and daughter.
Hearing the good news, he sets off for Stockholm on his motorbike. Having failed
to contact Shepherd by phone to congratulate him, his estranged son, Paul, manages to
meet up with him at a petrol station. Léo clearly has no time for his son
and drives off after a brief exchange of words. Paul decides to follow him in his
car. Annoyed, the writer accelerates and manages to shake off his pursuer.
When Paul finally catches up with his father it is at the scene of a terrible road accident.
Although Léo is not visibly injured, Paul insists on taking him to hospital.
The time has finally come for the two men to try to resolve their differences...
Review
Aime ton père is a film that wilfully blurs fiction and real-life experiences
in a typically French variant of the road movie. Writer-director Jacob Berger uses
his own experiences as the basis for the narrative - he is the son of the eminent English
writer John Berger. French cinema’s most famous father and son - Gérard and
Guillaume Depardieu - take the film’s two main roles, and is not difficult to see the
parallels between the characters they play and the people they are in real-life.
The differences between Depardieu père and fils are will-known and it is quite
extraordinary that they should end up, not only in the same film (they already did that
in Alain Corneau’s Tous
les matins du monde), but in a film where they effectively have to play out
something of their own private domestic drama. Is this therapy or wanton masochism?
Is there nothing the Depardieus wouldn’t do for their art?
In spite of - or perhaps because of - the proximity to their own experiences, the
two Depardieus manage to put in some incredible performances in this film. Both
appear visibly tormented by their memories and inability to communicate with one another.
Gérard is most effective when he is silently fuming - he hardly needs dialogue
to convey the depth and complexity of his emotions, and when he does speak, often in frenzied
outbursts, this seems to take away much of his power and presence. It is Guillaume,
surprisingly, who provides the film with its emotional strength and sense of truth.
In what is probably his best performance to date, he portrays with harrowing realism the
trauma of an unloved child and the continual inner conflict of an adult unable to forgive
his father. Given the right material and the right director, Guillaume Depardieu
shows that he can be every bit as fine an actor as his father.
Despite the contributions
from its lead actors - and by the way Sylvie Testud is pretty amazing as well - Aime
ton père is far from being a faultless piece of cinema. Whilst there
are some great moments, the relentlessly sombre mood of the piece does introduce a sense
of stifling monotony which does ultimately get irksome. However, the biggest failing
is the unconvincing ending, in which nothing appears to be resolved and everything just
seems to dissolve away into a hazy purple mist of artistic pretentiousness. Whilst
it may look superficially pretty, it’s dramatically weak - a totally unsatisfying conclusion
to what is otherwise a rather moving slice of life drama.
© James Travers 2006
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