After fifteen years of absence, a man returns to his family. Five-year-old Aurelie watches the stranger arrive and develops an immediate affinity with him. Her older sister, however, is very suspicious of the intruder and certain that misfortune will follow. The adults see nothing, but struggle with all their might when tragedy strikes. Naturally, the two girls bear the brunt of the impact. The film is an homage to the distant and primitive world of childhood, which shapes each of us.
Acting
The two young sisters carry devastating emotional weight.
Direction
Angel's patient, child's-eye view of adult catastrophe.
Cinematography
Bleak French countryside as psychological pressure cooker.
Director
Hélène Angel
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hélène Angel based the film on her own rural French upbringing, specifically the way children observe adult failures without vocabulary to name them.
This was Angel's feature debut; she insisted on casting non-professional local children and kept the adult actors separate from them until filming to preserve authentic unease.
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