Day ninety-two: La Famille Bélier (June, 09)

For two consecutive days, I've not been in the mood for movies. On those two days, something prove me wrong in a similar  way: two lovely films, both French and both with the same actor, François Damiens, the sweet Markus from Delicacy. This blog is getting supernatural:)

I was a bit afraid of La Famille Bélier, actually, since I've read about it for the first time. I'm always scared of movies being over sentimental and so. But I should have trusted in the easy (and yet dramatic) way by which French filmmakers talk about things. This movie is sweet, bittersweet even, funny, endearing. I was laughing loud for most of it, but with a sensitive heart to the story. 

Family can be such a joy, a comfort, and also a pain, and this movie presents how opting for a different path from your family is always difficult, even with parents as the crazy and amazing Béliers. A happy and sweet family can also be an obstacle to reaching for others ways of life.  The eldest daughter of a deaf couple, Paula has many responsibilities in her family dynamics... And she deals with surreal and daily situations with the same great easiness, but it all has a cost to her, as to us all in some moment of our lives. 

My only big but here is the last scene, as had happened in Les Beaux Jours: the lack of a better way to conjure all the things that would be on the end leads those productions to end their story in a way that looks inspirational, but for me sounds amateurish. The character, taking charge of his life, walks (or even better, runs) to what waits him ahead... And at that moment the movement stops, a close-up on his smiling and hopeful face. It is hideous. I don't reckon this is a good choice of ending, but an comfortable and easy way to go straight to the final credits. This alternative is lacking in so many ways, that is even sad to see that in a good rhythmic movies as La Famille Bélier. 

La Famille Bélier. Directed by Eric Lartigau. With: Karin Viard, François
Damiens, Louane Emera. Writers: Thomas Bidegain et al. France/Belgium,
2014, 106 min., Dolby SR, Color (DVD).

PS: I'm still troubled about how I got so prejudiced about Markus in Delicacy. In La Famille Bélier, François Damiens, with his weird face and opened smile, fits perfectly... but in a romantic role, I rejected him at first, just to be proved so wrong. It is so sad, and such a perverse easy trap, that  I'm still thinking about it.