2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #10 Sister (L'enfant d'en haut)

SISTER (L'enfant d'en haut)                 A-                   

France  Switzerland  (97 mi)  2012  d:  Ursula Meier               Official site [Hungary] 

This is another small and hauntingly beautiful film, set in Le Valais, a French-speaking part of Switzerland in the Swiss Alps where the gorgeous mountain scenery, luminously captured on 35 mm, is a perfect backdrop for this story which is largely an examination of class differences, where the wealthy live in a blissful affluence above the clouds, while the workers that serve them live in a more starkly real world of poverty below.  Kacey Mottet Klein is 12-year old Simon, an enterprising young kid who scrounges what he can from the abundance of unattended ski equipment and backpacks of visiting tourists, returning home down the mountain afterwards with a bag of goodies that he sells to the kids in town, a variation on Robin Hood spreading around the wealth, making Simon extremely popular with the locals, as he’s cornered the black market on high-end merchandise, where there’s some interesting similarities to the Polish film Yuma (2012), where the initial taste of Eastern bloc capitalism is seen as an open market free-for-all.  He lives in a high rise building with his older sister Louise, Léa Seydoux from Belle Épine (2012) and Christophe Honoré’s LA BELLE PERSONNE (2008) playing a very different kind of role, a girl with a harder edge, a reckless and largely indifferent influence in his life, as she’s usually off on her own spending time with flashy guys, returning broke, miserable, and alone, where Simon is actually  supporting her, which doesn’t seem to bother her at all, as she’s used to others taking care of her.  The squealing electric guitar score from P.J. Harvey producer John Parish offers a quirky sound design, while the superb cinematography is from Agnès Godard, who usually works with Claire Denis, but interestingly also worked with Erick Zonca in THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS (1998).  Actually it was hard not to think of Zonca and his exquisitely gritty depiction of social realism using a near documentary style, as he also made the short film LE PETIT VOLEUR (1999), which translates into The Little Thief, which may as well be the theme of this film, as that’s what people end up calling Simon.  Zonca’s slice-of-life technique is utilized here, as the seeing eye, hand-held camera literally follows Simon wherever he goes.

Written by the director and her co-writers Antoine Jaccoud and Gilles Taurand, reminiscent of the works by the Dardennes brothers, like ROSETTA (1999) and their more recent THE KID WITH A BIKE (2011), where initially there’s a certain amount of affection shown between the siblings, where they fight playfully over who gets the best stolen sandwiches, as all they have to eat is whatever Simon steals, but her long absences take a toll on both of them, but particularly Simon, as he has no real friends or adult influences in his life, so despite his thievery expertise, knowing the value of the merchandise, learning a ski culture that is otherwise foreign to him, he’s not a very good judge of when he’s gone too far.  When he inadvertently gets caught, the guy that catches him, Mike, Martin Compston from Andrea Arnold’s RED ROAD (2006), decides to partner up with him rather than turn him into authorities, as the kid has talent as a ski thief, not to mention elusive qualities that prevent him from being noticed.  But he continually overextends his welcome at Mike’s job, where he keeps popping up when he shouldn’t, ignoring Mike’s pleas to keep away.  In much the same way, he latches onto a British mother (Gillian Anderson) who is on holiday with her kids, where his curiosity becomes more of an obsession, where he literally forces himself to be a part of her world, where she’s obviously the mother he’s never had.  So Simon straddles the line of social acceptability, having long ago crossed the line of moral accountability, but his desire to be near others continually pushes him farther and farther into the danger zone, perhaps taking on the reckless behavior of his sister.  Occasionally the kid goes too far, literally beaten to a pulp after stealing the wrong guy’s sunglasses, a scene that takes place in full view of a café terrace filled with tourists sipping on beer and latte’s, where the guy justifies his extreme hostility by calling the kid a thief.  Impassively, the snow-drenched mountain peaks stand guard, immovable, implacable, yet overseeing all, while the views from the ski lift tram cars are continually mesmerizing.

Simon makes his way up and down the hill daily, where his apartment begins to resemble a stolen goods warehouse, also burying equipment under the snow at the top of the hill, where he’s got operations going at both ends for the Christmas holidays.  Louise has a greater presence in the latter segments, becoming a more uncomfortable fit in Simon’s life, bringing a guy home with her, where it’s clear she thinks Simon is in the way, often subjecting him to a fury of scorn and resentment, as if he’s screwed up her life.  Most of the film is seen through the isolated prism of Simon’s daily routines, where he’s left alone to fend for himself, doing the best that he can, where we wonder what else is he supposed to do?  His sister’s selfish rants have a way of seeping through the protective armor he’s forced to wear, literally demeaning him in a personally hurtful way that’s obviously worse than the humiliation of getting caught stealing or being beaten up.  Curiously, their playful fighting takes on a harsher tone, where both are struggling to inflict painful and damaging blows, both obviously hurt by the other, where Simon is hurt by the continuing attention paid to Louise by guys who could care less about her, and Louise sometimes wishes that Simon had never been born, as he’s always been an unwelcome burden in her life.  Having grown up seeing kids like Simon at ski resorts, the director creates a bleak but tender coming-of-age story that literally teases the audience with possible outcomes, often lingering in pause mode allowing the full effects to sink in, where Simon could be destitute, an outcast lost on his own, or he could get arrested and thrown into some bureaucratic jungle of youth homes, or this could turn instantly tragic, with these ski lifts constantly hovering above these shimmering, snow-packed mountains.  There’s an interesting shot where Simon is lost, literally paralyzed in thought, sitting alone on the edge of the wooden terrace overlooking the spectacular panoramic landscape, where humans themselves barely register in the majestic enormity of it all, where a lone bird lands on the terrace and amusingly hops across, where every step taken feels as random and as inexplicable as whatever’s running through Simon’s mind.  Meier has crafted an unflinchingly honest and touching film that slowly intensifies the quiet devastation building within, featuring sympathetic performances that are achingly real, all told without an ounce of pretense, winner of a special Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Sister (L'enfant d'en haut)

SISTER (L'enfant d'en haut)                 A-                   

France  Switzerland  (97 mi)  2012  d:  Ursula Meier               Official site [Hungary]

This is another small and hauntingly beautiful film, set in Le Valais, a French-speaking part of Switzerland in the Swiss Alps where the gorgeous mountain scenery, luminously captured on 35 mm, is a perfect backdrop for this story which is largely an examination of class differences, where the wealthy live in a blissful affluence above the clouds, while the workers that serve them live in a more starkly real world of poverty below.  Kacey Mottet Klein is 12-year old Simon, an enterprising young kid who scrounges what he can from the abundance of unattended ski equipment and backpacks of visiting tourists, returning home down the mountain afterwards with a bag of goodies that he sells to the kids in town, a variation on Robin Hood spreading around the wealth, making Simon extremely popular with the locals, as he’s cornered the black market on high-end merchandise, where there’s some interesting similarities to the Polish film Yuma (2012), where the initial taste of Eastern bloc capitalism is seen as an open market free-for-all.  He lives in a high rise building with his older sister Louise, Léa Seydoux from Belle Épine (2012) and Christophe Honoré’s LA BELLE PERSONNE (2008) playing a very different kind of role, a girl with a harder edge, a reckless and largely indifferent influence in his life, as she’s usually off on her own spending time with flashy guys, returning broke, miserable, and alone, where Simon is actually  supporting her, which doesn’t seem to bother her at all, as she’s used to others taking care of her.  The squealing electric guitar score from P.J. Harvey producer John Parish offers a quirky sound design, while the superb cinematography is from Agnès Godard, who usually works with Claire Denis, but interestingly also worked with Erick Zonca in THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS (1998).  Actually it was hard not to think of Zonca and his exquisitely gritty depiction of social realism using a near documentary style, as he also made the short film LE PETIT VOLEUR (1999), which translates into The Little Thief, which may as well be the theme of this film, as that’s what people end up calling Simon.  Zonca’s slice-of-life technique is utilized here, as the seeing eye, hand-held camera literally follows Simon wherever he goes.

Written by the director and her co-writers Antoine Jaccoud and Gilles Taurand, reminiscent of the works by the Dardennes brothers, like ROSETTA (1999) and their more recent THE KID WITH A BIKE (2011), where initially there’s a certain amount of affection shown between the siblings, where they fight playfully over who gets the best stolen sandwiches, as all they have to eat is whatever Simon steals, but her long absences take a toll on both of them, but particularly Simon, as he has no real friends or adult influences in his life, so despite his thievery expertise, knowing the value of the merchandise, learning a ski culture that is otherwise foreign to him, he’s not a very good judge of when he’s gone too far.  When he inadvertently gets caught, the guy that catches him, Mike, Martin Compston from Andrea Arnold’s RED ROAD (2006), decides to partner up with him rather than turn him into authorities, as the kid has talent as a ski thief, not to mention elusive qualities that prevent him from being noticed.  But he continually overextends his welcome at Mike’s job, where he keeps popping up when he shouldn’t, ignoring Mike’s pleas to keep away.  In much the same way, he latches onto a British mother (Gillian Anderson) who is on holiday with her kids, where his curiosity becomes more of an obsession, where he literally forces himself to be a part of her world, where she’s obviously the mother he’s never had.  So Simon straddles the line of social acceptability, having long ago crossed the line of moral accountability, but his desire to be near others continually pushes him farther and farther into the danger zone, perhaps taking on the reckless behavior of his sister.  Occasionally the kid goes too far, literally beaten to a pulp after stealing the wrong guy’s sunglasses, a scene that takes place in full view of a café terrace filled with tourists sipping on beer and latte’s, where the guy justifies his extreme hostility by calling the kid a thief.  Impassively, the snow-drenched mountain peaks stand guard, immovable, implacable, yet overseeing all, while the views from the ski lift tram cars are continually mesmerizing.

Simon makes his way up and down the hill daily, where his apartment begins to resemble a stolen goods warehouse, also burying equipment under the snow at the top of the hill, where he’s got operations going at both ends for the Christmas holidays.  Louise has a greater presence in the latter segments, becoming a more uncomfortable fit in Simon’s life, bringing a guy home with her, where it’s clear she thinks Simon is in the way, often subjecting him to a fury of scorn and resentment, as if he’s screwed up her life.  Most of the film is seen through the isolated prism of Simon’s daily routines, where he’s left alone to fend for himself, doing the best that he can, where we wonder what else is he supposed to do?  His sister’s selfish rants have a way of seeping through the protective armor he’s forced to wear, literally demeaning him in a personally hurtful way that’s obviously worse than the humiliation of getting caught stealing or being beaten up.  Curiously, their playful fighting takes on a harsher tone, where both are struggling to inflict painful and damaging blows, both obviously hurt by the other, where Simon is hurt by the continuing attention paid to Louise by guys who could care less about her, and Louise sometimes wishes that Simon had never been born, as he’s always been an unwelcome burden in her life.  Having grown up seeing kids like Simon at ski resorts, the director creates a bleak but tender coming-of-age story that literally teases the audience with possible outcomes, often lingering in pause mode allowing the full effects to sink in, where Simon could be destitute, an outcast lost on his own, or he could get arrested and thrown into some bureaucratic jungle of youth homes, or this could turn instantly tragic, with these ski lifts constantly hovering above these shimmering, snow-packed mountains.  There’s an interesting shot where Simon is lost, literally paralyzed in thought, sitting alone on the edge of the wooden terrace overlooking the spectacular panoramic landscape, where humans themselves barely register in the majestic enormity of it all, where a lone bird lands on the terrace and amusingly hops across, where every step taken feels as random and as inexplicable as whatever’s running through Simon’s mind.  Meier has crafted an unflinchingly honest and touching film that slowly intensifies the quiet devastation building within, featuring sympathetic performances that are achingly real, all told without an ounce of pretense, winner of a special Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Shadow Dancer

SHADOW DANCER              B+                  

Great Britain  Ireland  (100 mi)  ‘Scope  d:  James Marsh 

British director James Marsh loves suspense stories, where his taut directorial skills excel at creating an excruciatingly slow build up of tension leading to profoundly dramatic events, whether it be the breathtakingly elegant wire walker performance in MAN ON WIRE (2008) or the meticulously detailed police investigation in his episode of THE RED RIDING TRILOGY (2009).  Adapted by the author from his own 1998 novel by the same name, Tom Bradby spent three years (1993–96) as a Northern Ireland newspaper correspondent, covering the IRA ceasefire and the Northern Ireland peace process.  The opening twenty minutes of the film superbly demonstrate an economy of means, beautifully revealing the backdrop of the story with minimal dialogue, where in the early 70’s in Belfast a 12-year old sister sends her younger brother off to buy cigarettes on an errand her father requested she run for him, only to discover he’s killed as the innocent victim of crossfire shooting between soldiers and civilians.  Twenty years later, Colette, Andrea Riseborough from Brighton Rock (2010), is seen leaving a backpack carrying explosives on a stairway in a London subway station before making a daring escape.  Nonetheless, she’s arrested instantly and ushered into an interrogation room where Intelligence agent Clive Owen immediately gets her attention when he informs her that forensic evidence determined her brother was killed by an IRA bullet, before offering her a choice, get sent to prison for 20 years, separated from her young son, or return to her family as a police informer, reporting directly to him.  This introduction sequence sets the scene, a time when neither side trusted the other, there was however a thaw in relations and signs of hope from Prime Minister John Majors due to the departure of conservative hardliner Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990, the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century, and no friend to the Irish, certainly not the Irish Republican Army, as in 1981 she allowed ten Irish hunger strikers to die rather than admit they were being held for political crimes, where the IRA would just as soon blow up one of her ministers than talk to her. 

It’s clear by this time in the early 90’s, however, with a ceasefire and peace agreement on the table, that the British Intelligence Agency had sufficiently weakened the strength of the IRA by successfully infiltrating every level of their operations.  With the inevitable outcome drawing near, with Sinn Fein entering into the political arena, this kind of Intelligence threatening leverage has a way of looming over one’s life, where all her family ever knew was trouble, literally shaping the mindset of her two brothers, Gerry (Aidan Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson), both IRA trigger men, as well as her own violent past.  All living in the home of her widowed mother (Brid Brennan), did she want to add to her family’s grief?  When she eventually capitulates, they release her as if nothing happened, setting up regular meets with Owen.  After such a brilliant opening sequence, the rest never lives up to that level of intensity, quickly turning into a cat and mouse game of concealed information, betrayal, violent acts, behind the scenes power games, organizational deception, and confused allegiances.  Once the Intelligence Chief, a very Thatcher-like Gillian Anderson, thinks she has the means to take out several top level IRA leaders, Owen is mysteriously left out of the overall operations, insisting against the move because they will know the leak came from Colette, believing he was set up by his own operations.  Discovering they have a higher level informer in the IRA than Collette, Owen realizes that the sole purpose of recruiting her was never for information, but to have some “red meat” to throw the IRA investigators off track when they get too close to the real infiltrator, to keep them guessing. 

Curiously, the film evenhandedly paints a dark and murky picture on both sides, where the IRA's Kevin Mulville (David Wilmot) has the unsavory task of torturing his own people, ironically using the methods of the enemy, using waterboarding techniques when interrogating potential traitors.  A world where everyone is suspicious is a curiously strange and anxiety-ridden place, where one of the more chillingly conceived sequences is the military funeral service of an IRA member, where the British army stands nearly side by side with guns pointed straight at them the whole time.  In response, there is an IRA ritual commemorating a fallen soldier by hiding the guns and masking the potential shooters, and then having several members fire live bullets into the air as a sign of defiance and open rebellion against the British.  This is a beautifully staged stand-off that is exasperatingly offensive and couldn’t be more dramatically powerful, leading to still more plot twists down the road with devastating effects.  The moody score is by Dickon Hinchliffe of the Tindersticks, also writing the music for Debra Granik’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Winter's Bone (2010).  Andrea Riseborough in particular is especially effective in an understated performance, remaining at the center of the moral quandary throughout, continually relaying her doubts and fears, always caught in the middle, certain she is suspect, uncertain of how to claw her way out of the desperate circumstances that she continually finds herself in, reminiscent of Ingrid Bergman’s role in Hitchcock’s NOTORIOUS (1946), where FBI agent Cary Grant blackmails Bergman into infiltrating a WWII Nazi spy ring.  Due to financial restraints, the film was actually shot in Dublin instead of Belfast, losing some of the historic authenticity, where this version is also surprisingly politically neutral, showing both sides to be equally merciless in their quest to root out terrorists and traitors.  Nonetheless, through restrained direction, reminiscent of the paranoid thrillers of American films of the 70’s, like Alan J. Pakula’s KLUTE (1971) and PARALLAX VIEW (1974), or Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION (1974), to name a few, the apt tension is there throughout in this gripping political thriller.