Le hérisson

Something there is about little French films that is like discovering a free-floating water lily in a quiet stream: it approaches you, shares it lovely scent as it passed, and then continues on out of sight, leaving you warmly happy at the privilege of observing a gentle bit of nature if only for a moment. THE HEDGEHOG does just that. Mona Achache directs her screen play adapted from the novel "L'élégance du hérisson" by Muriel Barbery, casts an impeccable group of actors who bring to life this tale of how serendipitous nods of love can alter lives.

The title comes form the definition of a hedgehog as a prickly-on- the-outside, cuddly-on- the-inside critter that is often misjudged. And that definition applies to several characters in the story though it is most directly connected to bourgeoisie apartment house concierge Renee Michel (Josiane Balasko), a middle-aged and sour hermit who lives to mop the floor, distribute mail, and to give you a wary eye to passersby. The building is inhabited by rich people, a fact we learn from the narrator of the story - Paloma Josse (Garance Le Guillermic), an eleven-year-old girl disturbed by her privileged life in Paris. Her father Paul (Wladimir Yordanoff) is distracted by his government job while her mother Solange (Anne Brochet) drinks champagne with anti-depressants while talking to her plants, and her sister Colombe (Sarah Le Picard) focuses her shallow life on a pet goldfish. She decides she will kill herself in 165 days on her 12th birthday and begins to document the hypocrisy of the adults in her apartment building with her father's old 8mm camcorder. Her harsh judgments do not seem to include Renee: though they are at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum Paloma senses something unusual about Renee, explores her apartment and discovers the extensive secret library in Renee's back room, and that the often untidy appearing and distant matron reads Tolstoy to her cat Leo. Renee's hedgehog appearance does indeed contain a cuddly inside, a fact that is revealed when a new tenant - Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) moves in and he and Paloma realize they are kindred spirits. Mr. Ozu is a wealthy Japanese businessman and he strikes up a friendship with Paloma as they discuss their shared curiosity for the downstairs concierge woman and their delight in playing the game Go with one another. Kakuro's attention to and kindness for Renee creates changes: Renee is instructed by the maid Manuela Lopez (Ariane Ascaride) to have her hair done and to wear a new dress when Renee reluctantly accepts Kakuro's invitation to dinner. As Paloma observes the changes Kakuro creates in both Renee and in herself, her own coming of age becomes a much less pessimistic prospect. 'Planning to die doesn't mean I let myself go like a rotten vegetable. What matters isn't the fact of dying or when you die. It's what you're doing at that precise moment.' And from there the story moves like that free floating water lily - passing on through life enlightened by its presence.

Josiane Belasko, Garance Le Guillermic, and Togo Igawa are brilliant in their roles. The script is quiet, intelligent and ultimately deeply touching, but it is the direction of Mona Achache that polishes this little gem to a glow. Clearly this is one of the finest films of the past decade.

Grady Harp

I suppose if you have not read the book on which this film is based (L'elegance du herisson) you might be a little bewildered. I and the the jam-packed audience I saw it with in Fremantle, Western Australia, had. It is a delightful study of three 'outsider' personalities: a precocious teenage girl, a very unusual concierge and a Japanese gentleman. It probably resonates more if you know France, especially Paris; even Europe would do. I am now looking for it on DVD (at a reasonable price for Region 4) because it is a film I know I will watch again and again for its delicate study of 'la condition humaine' - the character studies are delightful. Don't be put off by earlier reviews. Leave your prejudices outside the cinema and sit back and enjoy a delicate, delightful study of three very non-American people observed in a very non-American way. If Australians can appreciate this film, it should appeal to anyone with sensibilities.

Three characters and no story. And yet, the film leaves a deep mark on the viewer. No car chases, no explosions, no convoluted plot twists. And yet it is captivating. Simply because the characters of "Le hérisson" are interesting and full of humanity and seeing them connect with each other is an experience rich enough to spare a strong plot.

The three characters concerned by "Le hérisson" are very different from each other ( Renée Michel is an unattractive slovenly cantankerous fifty-four-year-old caretaker; Paloma Josse is an extremely gifted but suicidal eleven-year-old little girl and Kakuro Ozu is a distinguished seventy-year- old Japanese widower). But they have two points in common: they live in the same residential house and, mostly, the three of them are eccentric. Not outlandish or extravagant, simply not like everybody else. Renée, although she tries to fit in with the image of the traditional caretaker (middle-aged, unsexy and grumpy), has a secret (that I won't reveal here, sorry) and is a much better person than what she looks like; Paloma is a very intelligent little girl, advanced for her age, who sees the world with more acuteness than most adults, which leads her to want to take her own life. As for Mr. Ozu, the mere fact that he is Japanese makes him conspicuous by definition. And what is wonderful is that when these three "outcasts" get into contact they start doing good to each other, and to the viewer as well.

This is young director Mona Achache's first feature film and it is amazing how well-crafted it is (smooth editing, fine cinematography, excellent art work). And above all it does justice to the novel adapted (Muriel Barbery's best-selling 'L'élégance du hérisson') by capturing the special blend of gravity and lightness that makes it so distinctive. Mona Achache also had the genius (I really do not think the word too strong) to find the three ideal actors for the leading roles. Josiane Balasko is perfect as Renée, ugly outside but beautiful inside. Togo Igawa is a dream Mr. Ozu; he is Japanese to the core, genuinely has class and really exudes sympathy. As for the little girl, wow! Garance Le Guillermic IS a discovery! I had seen her once without noticing her particularly (as one of the kids in 'Je déteste les enfants des autres') but, here, she is downright outstanding. It must not have been easy for her to play a child too mature, too intelligent, too critical for her age, hiding her insecurities behind her aggressiveness but the young actress lives up to the ordeal. This trio had to be perfect. If a single one of these three actors had been unconvincing, the film would have failed mercilessly.

Fortunately, it does not. 27-year-old Mona Achache works wonders in every department.. Her film is at the same time deep, moving and fun to watch. Don't miss it!

This film is so good I wanted it to run forever. The unfolding of characters, especially Paloma --the 11 years old girl--and the Concierge of the building, are so masterful, that one seats there mesmerized waiting to see the new developments.

The concierge character is a tour de force. The way she starts, as an obscure caretaker, moving the trash cans of the rich neighbors out on the sidewalk --only five huge de luxe apartments at her charge-- retrieving the empty containers the next morning and always moody and dry (as she herself puts it to Paloma, the girl, "the perfect concierge" according to the accepted urban legend about concierges in people's mind), and then because of her unexpected interacting with that precocious girl and the impeccable Japanese new neighbor, her subtle but unstoppable changes are something to be seen (as are also the changes in Paloma and the perfect Japanese new neighbor).

The little girl's mother, psychoanalyzed and medicated, watering her plants and talking to them (I do it too) with much more love and infinite care than to her own daughter, is fully drawn in a very succinct and accurate way.

Paloma is left alone to her own devices, and they only consist of an old fashioned movie camera --her father's gift to her-- perennially in front of her face (she films everything that moves) and her drawings (delightful) where she expresses her most inner thoughts.

This is a perfect example of a French film --I ADORE this type of French cinema--where very little happens but in such an intimate and delicate communion with the viewer that it absorbs one's mind completely, and doesn't let go till the very end, in the most poignantly and unexpected possible way, as it's the case in the present film. See it, it's totally worth your while.

I only wish you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Precious.

In this adept and well-acted little sentimental charmer, a screen adaptation of Muriel Barbery's bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a precocious and artistic little rich girl, an intellectual concierge, and a benevolent Japanese gentleman come together in a posh Parisian apartment building for a brief period of understanding, communion, and the beginnings of love. The story is a little like an episode from Kay Thompson's Eloise, but set in Paris with philosophical and orientalist touches, a girl who is more smug and priggish than cute and an increasingly saccharine trajectory that is only just barely saved by a tart finale.

Paloma (Garance Le Guillemic) is continually filming her annoying family, her Minister father, her mother who is addicted to Freudian analysis, tranquilizers, and champagne and makes more fuss over her plants than her daughter, her non-entity sister, and people in the corridor of the luxury five-unit apartment building. As she films, she describes everyone and everything for us in a whisper into the camera recorder. She has concluded that her life is a fish bowl from which there is no meaningful escape and therefore on her next birthday, her twelfth, she has decided she will commit suicide. Meanwhile she makes her films, stockpiles her mother's tranquilizers, and does drawings more likely for a professional illustrator than a sub-teen kid.

Meanwhile one of the wealthy residents dies of a heart attack, and the Japanese gentleman, Monsieur Ozu (no relation to the director, we learn later) moves into a flat miraculously and instantly converted into a palace of Zen minimalism with gray walls, black ceramics, and other delights, an oasis of quiet, aesthetic calm, and Japonism. Even the concierge, or building janitor (though the term today is usually "gardien," concierge being considered outmoded), Madame Michel (Josiane Balasko), has a place that's rather handsomely decorated; quite lovely wallpaper. Paloma's room is a throwaway, we get only glimpses of it, but it's obviously as elaborately crafted.

Madame lets Monsieur Ozu into his new place, and he discovers something: she has read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. And judging from the fact that her cat is named Léo, he correctly concludes she's a great fan of the Russian writer. He begins wooing her, starting by presenting her with an elegant two-volume edition of the novel. Other gifts and invitations follow, with dinner in Ozu's flat prepared by him, a private screening of a classic Japanese film on video that Madame Michel has, and finally a date at a posh sushi bar. With the help of a pal who's a lady dry cleaner, Madame Michel gets a complete makeover, with a fashionable haircut and nice clothes.

Paloma is ridiculously and ultimately unbearably clever, most of the other characters are mere objects, Monsieur Ozu is just an attractive gadget to draw Madame Michel out of her shell. Her place is full of books -- but TV-friendly too, though she probably keeps the set on with the sound off merely to play the role of the classic concierge -- an aging, overweight, ugly, irritable old bag who sits around watching TV all day. Madame Michel sits with a purring Léo (though Monsieur Ozu has even better cats, by the way) reading good books -- when she is not cleaning up in the courtyard and sidewalk and being wooed by the wealthy, mysterious Japanese gentleman (we never learn where the dough comes from).

Paloma, who partakes of some of the wisdom of novelist Barbery, a teacher of philosophy resident in Japan, announces during one of her monologues that she is sure Madame Michel is a "hedghog" (hérisson), prickly on the outside but possessed of an interior that's subtle and kind.

The Hedgehog/Le hérisson itself partakes of some of the essential qualities suited to international bestsellers. Its simplifications are satisfying, if you don't go too deep. Its world is appealing and somewhat exotic. Its truths are self-evident. To do her credit, the excellent Josiane Balasko gives a degree of complexity to her performance one could hardly expect from such material. She is, of course, the film's most many-layered character. At least she has the outer and inner layers Paloma attributes to the hedgehog. Paloma admires her because she has "found the perfect way to hide." She can spend hours in her back room with her great books, while appearing on the outside to be a frumpy old creature that people don't even see and never bother except to have her hold a package for them.

But the artificiality of ideas and the stereotypical nature of most of the characters make this, whatever its homely message of love and acceptance of life, altogether less humane and alive than a little film like François Dupeyron's 2003 Monsieur Ibrahim/Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. That too was simplistic, but it had moments of life in it. Both films fade when compared to that other movie about a precocious girl's views, Julie Gavras' 2006 Blame It on Fidel/La faute à Fidel, which works through a child's sensibility to depict how -- from her viewpoint, anyway -- her family life goes quickly and irrevocably downhill when her parents become communist revolutionaries. Political realities stretch further than life lessons delivered in a completely contrived environment, even one in which a teenage boy can get laid.

This film received indifferent reviews in Paris after its summer (July 3, 2009) release, particularly from the more sophisticated media, but it looks like it might have good American art-house potential. It was part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema (jointly sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance) and screened at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center, New York, in March 2010.