Reviews
The Father Of My Children
March 5 2010
Mia Hansen-Løve
Starring Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Chiara Caselli, Alice de Lencquesaing
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Inspired by the suicide of producer and friend Humbert Balsan, Mia Hansen-Løve’s second feature intelligently unpicks the before and after of a tragic act of desperation. Positioning the unexpected moment of violence at the film’s halfway point, The Father Of My Children takes shape as a two-act piece that spirals towards, before reflecting on, its shocking climax. This neat bifurcation of the narrative allows Mia Hansen-Løve to effect a successful shift in perspective and traverse a broad emotional canvas. This she does with confidence and sensitivity, and yet her delicately observed drama of loss and renewal is never quite as stirring as it should be.
Parisian film producer Grégoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) is passionately devoted to independent cinema, but his company, Moon Films, is on the brink of financial collapse, and he is fast running out of options. Cue his violent, unanticipated suicide, and a loving family left to rake through the ruins of bereavement and debt.
Hansen-Løve steers clear of the maudlin by opting not to wallow in the family’s pain. Instead, her surviving characters adopt a pragmatic approach to the impact of Grégoire’s death; his wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) throwing herself into an attempt to rescue Moon Films and honour her husband’s legacy, while his eldest daughter Alice (Alice de Lencquesaing) develops a growing enthusiasm for the films he spent his life trying to fund. In this way, The Father Of My Children grows to resemble less a depiction of familial grief than a eulogy to an industry in crisis, and it is perhaps in this transition that its emotive muscle is enfeebled.
Behind the shift from the familial to the ideological, and arguably of greater interest, is Hansen-Løve’s quiet exploration of the fallout of male hubris and repression. That Grégoire’s mistakes, from the dissolution of his production company to a neglected son he has had by another woman, are put right by the women in his life sets up an interesting divide between the implied irresponsibility of men and the corrective female influence.
From this, we might draw some stimulating and timely parallels between Grégoire’s silent disintegration and the notion of a gendered economic collapse.
Anticipation:
Enjoyment:
In Retrospect:
"That Grégoire’s mistakes, from the dissolution of his production company to a neglected son he has had by another woman, are put right by the women in his life sets up an interesting divide between the implied irresponsibility of men and the corrective female influence."
This would be a more interesting reading if it were actually true that G's mistakes, as listed, are put right by by the women in his life…
Written by Anton Bitel on March 4th, 2010 at 11:53
Regardless of whether they are SUCCESSFULLY dealt with by the women in question, their consequences are nonetheless left in the hands of the female characters.
Written by Emma Paterson on March 6th, 2010 at 01:03
…and in the hands of his male producer friend Serge, his male accountant, his male lawyer, and the male receiver. The film's focus is on family, and Grégoires family happens to be all-female – but I just don't see the gendered critique that you are imposing on the film.
Written by Anton Bitel on March 6th, 2010 at 09:42
Except that the family and its reparative function might themselves be seen as gendered female/feminine. The divide I am suggesting – and not "imposing" – manifests parallels with the ancient Greek separation between the oikos (family, and female space) and the polis (city, and male space). In the film, Gregoire's women must step out of the oikos and into the polis to pick up the pieces of his mistakes. I am simply pointing to that old (if archaic) notion of the men who go to war and the women who bandage their wounds.
Written by Emma Paterson on March 6th, 2010 at 12:26
The ancient Greek oikos was strictly divided into men's and women's quarters. It was a space that accommodated all – even the slaves. I just don't see any constructive parallel between an ancient Greek household (where women were regarded as chattels, and kept in conditions not unlike purdah) and the sort depicted in Father of my Children.
In the film, Gregoire's women are already in the Parisian polis (until the end, when they leave it). That place where they are located at the beginning of the film is their weekend countryhouse – it it is not where they live. Clemence is leaving the oikos only in the sense that she is coming (although has not yet fully come) of age, a transition which the film depicts with great subtlety (especially in the sequence where she changes her order of a coffee to a hot chocolate).
When Clemence characterises the way that Gregoire has treated his son as abandonment – indeed, as abandonment which she likens to what she is herself suffering – Sylvia herself is quick to leap to her hsuband's defence, and to suggest that the circumstances were more complex than Clemence imagines. Indeed, Clemence's anxious misapprehension (inspired by the malicious gossip that she overhears in a cafe) that her father was involved in an ongoing adulterous affair [minor spoiler alert] is quickly scotched, and the son turns out to be much older than Clemence herself, and now married with his own children. Gregoire is a flawed character, and has made some terrible decisions with catatstrophic consequences – but there is also much about him to be admired (Sylvia, for one, is full of admiration for him) – and I just didn't see the film as attributing either his good or his bad points to anything specifically male about him. After all, his best friend Serge is also his opposite in just about every way – and male.
Written by Anton Bitel on March 6th, 2010 at 12:59
I wholly agree that Gregoire's character is painted sympathetically in the film, and it is not my intention for the reading above to carry with it a value judgement of any sort. However, I do see the presentation of his catastrophic fate and its culmination in suicide as flavoured by something gender specific. Perhaps we should just agree to differ..!
Written by Emma Paterson on March 7th, 2010 at 18:13
Hey Emma
Fair enough. Really enjoyed your review, btw – and the film.
ant
Written by Anton Bitel on March 7th, 2010 at 19:22
Hi Anton,
Good of you to say so! Incidentally, had no idea you were a part-time classicist when I raised the oikos point…
Emma
Written by Emma Paterson on March 8th, 2010 at 23:23