Papa lumière (2015)
Directed by Ada Loueilh

Film Review

In her feature debut, Papa lumière, director Ada Loueilh references her own early years in a lowkey drama that explores the awkward relationship between an estranged father and daughter as they separately come to terms with an enforced exile in a foreign land, namely France. Loueilh's film is full of good intentions, boasts a strong central performance and contains one or two powerful scenes but it struggles to engage the audience's sympathies, being hampered by a lacklustre script that lacks depth and a light touch directorial approach that is conspicuous by its absence.

Flawed as the film is, it does have one ace up its sleeve, which is the ever-dependable Niels Arestrup in yet another role that appears to have been tailor-made for him.  Arestrup has an Atlas-like job bearing pretty well the entire weight of the film, but he does so with his customary aplomb and what he offers us is a commendably sincere portrayal of a man who is pushed to the brink having lost his friends, fortune and reputation when fleeing the civil war in Ivory Coast and then having to face the ignominy of being ill-treated by his country of origin. This latter theme strikes an immediate chord as immigration is one of the hot topics in France at the moment.  The fact that Arestrup's character is a French expatriate who is offered few favours on returning to his native land shows how thorny an issue immigration is in France.

Arestrup's performance has enough meat and gristle on it to make the film worth watching (just), although his scenes with newcomer Julia Coma, playing his on-screen daughter, aren't as convincing as you would hope (again, because of a weak script that fails to develop the characters sufficiently).  Heavy on pathos but low on real sentiment, Papa lumière makes fairly depressing viewing, although the film is at least partly redeemed by the solid contribution from its lead actor, who lives up to his reputation as a giant of French cinema.

Film Synopsis

In April 2011, Jacques and Safi land at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, after being urgently repatriated from Abidjan.  His skin is dark-tanned by his life in Africa where he worked as a hotelier; she is his fourteen-year-old daughter, a half-caste.  Before her departure, Safi had grown used to living with her mother and she is unsure what to make of the garrulous father who took her away by force.  Arriving at a reception centre in Nice, the father and daughter finally have the chance to get to know one another, perhaps even to love one another.  But there is also Gloria, Safi's mother who has been left behind in a country in turmoil and seemingly unreachable...