Released a little over a year after its debut at Cannes 2009, Mia Hansen-Løve's lovingly made The Father of My Children is one of the few films ever released that realistically conveys the heartbreak of both loving cinema and being in the uncomfortable position of having to sell it to distributors, co-producers, and, ultimately, the masses.
This particular burden makes up the professional life of Grégoire Canvel, played with fantastic charisma and heartache by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, who runs a small production company facing financial ruin. Cellphone glued to his ear, Grégoire repairs, seals, and dreams up deals from his car, the bus, and even his country home, where he goes to escape from Paris life with his family. The film begins at the end, with Grégoire enacting several last ditch efforts to save his company and a handful of projects. The efforts fail and on a sunny day, walking down a quiet street, Grégoire shoots himself in the head.
In early scenes, Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), Grégoire's wife, is seen as tough-willed and supportive; an anchor for her frenetic spouse. They share a particularly moving and intimate moment on a bridge where Grégoire finally admits financial defeat to her. But the death of Grégoire switches the film, with admitted bumpiness, to focus on the tribulations of securing his legacy. Knowing almost nothing of the business, Sylvia is charged with saving both her husband's projects and the company's back catalogue -- encountering hard-nosed financiers, disillusioned co-workers, and one pain-in-the-ass Swedish helmer along the way.
Sylvia struggles, finding more condolences than hope for financial salvation, but the effects of Grégoire's death are felt far more strongly in his eldest daughter Clemence (the talented Alice de Lencquesaing, Louis-Do's real-life daughter). Following the tragedy, Clemence attends a retrospective of a filmmaker her father championed and begins to date a young director in whom Grégoire had seen promise.
The Father of My Children is not a great film but it is a wholly compelling one: One that shows a rare fascination with the day-to-day business of the foolish endeavor of trying to release intelligent films in a rigged market. The business of making and distributing movies has turned out some understandably nasty, generally brainless dark comedies (most recently: What Just Happened?). Hansen-Løve draws from similar experiences as those films but never employs hyperbole or caricature, refusing to treat even the most animated of her characters as anything but human. And even with its faults, the film shows a professional and endearing attitude towards the ties that bind the numerous facets that keep global cinema's head above water.
As has been widely reported, Grégoire is based on the late Humbert Balsan, the French producer and dear friend of Samuel Fuller who hung himself in 2005. Balsan was partially responsible for bringing films as diverse as Claire Denis's The Intruder and Elia Suleiman's sublime Divine Intervention to international markets. Hansen-Løve's film, her second after the promising All is Forgiven, may not be as intelligently written or tonally consistent as either of those works, but it feels like the work of an artist unabashedly in love with her medium.
aka Le père de mes enfants
This particular burden makes up the professional life of Grégoire Canvel, played with fantastic charisma and heartache by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, who runs a small production company facing financial ruin. Cellphone glued to his ear, Grégoire repairs, seals, and dreams up deals from his car, the bus, and even his country home, where he goes to escape from Paris life with his family. The film begins at the end, with Grégoire enacting several last ditch efforts to save his company and a handful of projects. The efforts fail and on a sunny day, walking down a quiet street, Grégoire shoots himself in the head.
In early scenes, Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), Grégoire's wife, is seen as tough-willed and supportive; an anchor for her frenetic spouse. They share a particularly moving and intimate moment on a bridge where Grégoire finally admits financial defeat to her. But the death of Grégoire switches the film, with admitted bumpiness, to focus on the tribulations of securing his legacy. Knowing almost nothing of the business, Sylvia is charged with saving both her husband's projects and the company's back catalogue -- encountering hard-nosed financiers, disillusioned co-workers, and one pain-in-the-ass Swedish helmer along the way.
Sylvia struggles, finding more condolences than hope for financial salvation, but the effects of Grégoire's death are felt far more strongly in his eldest daughter Clemence (the talented Alice de Lencquesaing, Louis-Do's real-life daughter). Following the tragedy, Clemence attends a retrospective of a filmmaker her father championed and begins to date a young director in whom Grégoire had seen promise.
The Father of My Children is not a great film but it is a wholly compelling one: One that shows a rare fascination with the day-to-day business of the foolish endeavor of trying to release intelligent films in a rigged market. The business of making and distributing movies has turned out some understandably nasty, generally brainless dark comedies (most recently: What Just Happened?). Hansen-Løve draws from similar experiences as those films but never employs hyperbole or caricature, refusing to treat even the most animated of her characters as anything but human. And even with its faults, the film shows a professional and endearing attitude towards the ties that bind the numerous facets that keep global cinema's head above water.
As has been widely reported, Grégoire is based on the late Humbert Balsan, the French producer and dear friend of Samuel Fuller who hung himself in 2005. Balsan was partially responsible for bringing films as diverse as Claire Denis's The Intruder and Elia Suleiman's sublime Divine Intervention to international markets. Hansen-Løve's film, her second after the promising All is Forgiven, may not be as intelligently written or tonally consistent as either of those works, but it feels like the work of an artist unabashedly in love with her medium.
aka Le père de mes enfants
