Noticias

City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival

Plenty of films have dealt with the longing for a child or the emotional and political ramifications of adoption. But Holy Lola, Bertrand Tavernier's vivid and affecting new film, immerses viewers in the experience of foreign adoption. Revolving around a French couple's moment-to-moment endurance test through hope, red tape and an unfamiliar culture as they try to adopt a child in Cambodia, the film convincingly re-creates the semi-stateless state of Westerners who travel abroad in pursuit of a baby to love. At once thoughtful and visceral, the well-acted drama, which screened at the City of Lights, City of Angels fest, deserves wider stateside exposure.

Holy Lola is similar in setup to John Sayles' Mexico-set Casa de los Babys but without being static or didactic. Tavernier wastes no time on background before plunging into the humid downpours of monsoon season in Phnom Penh, where 40-ish "country doctor" Pierre Ceyssac (Jacques Gamblin) and his wife, Geraldine (Isabelle Carre) -- a bespectacled blonde who's weary of being told how young she looks -- have come to adopt a child. Along with other guests at their hotel, which caters to French would-be adopters, the Ceyssacs inhabit a strange limbo somewhere between tourism and exile.

The script by Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier and the director is refreshingly free of psychologizing; through shorthand and the cast's naturalistic work, we know all we need to know about the hotel's cross-section of France, from working-class couple Marco and Sandrine (Bruno Putzulu and Maria Pitarresi) to Annie (Lara Guirao), alone and especially resilient. Whether still searching for a child or awaiting exit paperwork, they seesaw between hope and disappointment for weeks on end.

The drama's moral questions are as implicit as the need to care for a child. In postcolonial Cambodia, where bureaucrats quote Hugo or appreciate offerings of Shalimar, Westerners' only power is money. Wielding the most power are the story's unseen Americans, while the Ceyssacs ply local orphanages with food and toys, hoping to be in the right place at the right time when a child becomes available. They befriend a clinic doctor (Vongsa Chea) who helps them navigate the labyrinth. An encounter with baby traffickers in the impoverished, mine-dotted countryside proves dispiriting on many levels.

There's a wonderful moment when the Ceyssacs and another couple cross a dangerously busy thoroughfare four abreast, arms linked. It's a lovely picture of the way they collectively withstand the dislocation and try to make sense of a formidable bureaucracy. The equanimity Pierre and Geraldine attain during months of uncertainty becomes clear only when new people arrive at the hotel, anxious and green.

Alain Choquart's ace camerawork captures the intimate drama with immediacy, and Henri Texier's propulsive music is a major contribution.

HOLY LOLA

A Little Bear/Les Films Alain Sarde/TF1 Films Prods. production with the participation of Canal Plus, Sofica Valor 6, Sogecinema 2

Credits:

Director: Bertrand Tavernier

Screenwriters: Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier, Bertrand Tavernier

Producers: Frederic Bourboulon, Alain Sarde

Executive producers: Agnes Le Pont, Christine Gozlan

Director of photography: Alain Choquart

Production designer: Giuseppe Ponturo

Music: Henri Texier

Costume designer: Eve-Marie Arnault

Editor: Sophie Brunet

Cast:

Dr. Pierre Ceyssac: Jacques Gamblin

Geraldine Ceyssac: Isabelle Carre

Marco Folio: Bruno Putzulu

Annie: Lara Guirao

Xavier: Frederic Pierrot

Sandrine Folio: Maria Pitarresi

Michel: Jean-Yves Roan

Dr. Sim Duong: Vongsa Chea

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 128 minutes...