La faute à Fidel!

Set in the politically turbulent Paris of the1970s, "Blame it on Fidel" tells of a sheltered young girl who has her comfortable bourgeois existence ripped away from her after her staid, conformist parents (Julie Depardieu, Stefano Accorsi) suddenly become born again leftist radicals. Anna is forced to give up the home she loves and the nanny she adores when her father quits his job in order to dedicate himself full time to fighting for the proletariat against the repressive corporate powers of the world. The family moves from their spacious home in the country to a cramped apartment in the city, which is often filled with bearded revolutionaries who utter strange catch-phrases in barely audible whispers.

Thanks to a thoughtful script and sensitive direction, "Blame it on Fidel" manages to provide a compelling child's-eye view of the adult world. Incapable of grasping the "big picture" as her parents see it, Anna knows only that the family is now woefully short on cash (she runs around the house flipping off light switches and heaters to save electricity), and that her mother and father are so preoccupied with their "cause" that Anna and her little brother (the adorable, scene-stealing Benjamin Feuillet) seem to have been relegated to mere afterthoughts in their parents' tremendously busy lives. In a performance rich in insight and wisdom and utterly un-self-conscious in tone, nine-year-old Nina Kervel-Bey brings to life a character who often doesn't fully understand what's going on in the world around her but who never gives up trying to figure it all out. For a good part of the time, Anna is torn between childish curiosity and an indefinable sense of shame regarding her parents' newfound activities. Yet, through keen observation and endless questioning, and the eventual piecing together of the many unfiltered fragments that come floating her way, Anne is finally able to come to some kind of understanding, however imperfect, of the much larger world community of which she is only a very small but crucial part.

Despite the inherently ideological nature of the material, writer/director Julie Gavras, the daughter of famed filmmaker Costa-Gavras, keeps most of the political stuff in the background while she concentrates on the strain the grownups feel as they strive to juggle their save-the-world activities with their duties as parents.

Add to this some excellent performances by a talented cast and a rich, flavorful score by Armand Amar and "Blame it on Fidel" becomes a film well worth checking out. In this her second venture as a director, Ms. Gavras has done her old man proud.

this is no ordinary coming-of-age film. this is the transition story of nine-year-old Anna de la mesa (played by Nina kervel-bey) who's life changes forever when her parents begin an ideological sea-change. her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando (stefano accorsi) is inspired by his family's opposition to Franco (you later learn he is from a rich catholic royalist family and that his uncle is fighting in Spain) and allende's victory in Chile, to quit his job and become a liaison in France for Chilean activists. her mother, a Marie Clare journalist turned writer documenting the stories of women's abortion ordeals, supports her husband and climbs aboard the ideological bandwagon. as a result Anna's french bourgeois life is over. she must adjust to refugee nannies, international cuisine and a cramped apartment fully of noisy revolutionaries.

the film is filled with a dizzying array of philosophy and ideology - everything from communism, to Catholicism to Greek and Asian mythology - which Anna must reconstruct from confusion to her own set of beliefs. as she negotiates her way through this ideological maze until ultimate internalization of her parents' admirable (all be it ad hocly administered) objectives we are exposed to a witty analysis of stereotyping, misinformation, the potential hypocrisies of ideologies and the potential false-hopes of idealism.

for example Anna's mother makes a comment that she can get the kind of issues-political writing she is turning her repertoire to published in Marie Clare, but later throws out a copy of the magazine when her article isn't published, proving that just because you want to save the world doesn't mean Marie Clare does.

an example of stereotyping and misinformation around beliefs is the number of reds under the beds comments and Anna's grandmother's comment that the commies want to take all of Anna's toys. she also says that all radicals have beards, which, when repeated later by Anna, is met with an inquiry as to whether Santa clause is a radical by her kid-brother Francois (played by Benjamin feuillet).

another witty example at one point her parents take her to a rally to demonstrate solidarity, but later in the film, when 'exercising solidarity' with her classmates who all believe Rome to have existed before Greece despite her knowing better, she learns that solidarity and being a sheep are two different things. but when her dad tells her that is being a sheep, she asks how he knows that what he is doing is solidarity, not just being a sheep.

i really like the film's human side. the film is constantly filled with usual family goings-on – mother-daughter tiffs, routines, sharing meals – which illustrates that these militants are real people, with families and commitments. Francois is as real a little boy – will all the bounce and energy and impulsiveness – as any other which makes his character totally believable.

the first-time director Julie gavras is the daughter of militant filmmaker Costa gavras, peppering the film with a sense of lived history. added to how delightfully self-aware the film is, la faute à Fidel is a smart film that takes on the role of exposing the ways in which children may be victimized by the ideas of their parents, even when those ideas are well- meaning and progressive.

Wonderful movie that clears out your mind and leaves you purified when feeling so dirty. Wonderful little girl! Wonderful little boy! So amazed by how they are that I don't feel like saying more on the movie in general. Anna de la Mesa is so real. All that phases she goes through and all the complication of her mind are beautifully harmonized with the politics. It's not a story of a changing family (life); it's rather the display of a huge load on the shoulders of a little girl. It's worth it; watch it.

(By the way just because I watched the two in a row; I must say that "La Faute à Fidel" is much more effective than "Persepolis" in order of viewing the world from a growing child's point-of-view. Good directing there by Julie Gavras.)

Julie Gavras is famous politically committed director Costa-Gavras'daughter and it shows. But be reassured "La faute à Fidel", her first fiction film (coming after a pair of interesting documentaries) isn't a carbon copy of a Costa Gavras movie in any way. It is much more exciting than just that in that it examines thoroughly the pros and the cons of leftist involvement, mainly its negative repercussions on family life.

The plot revolves around little nine-year-old Anna( played to perfection by tense, brooding, occasionally warming to a welcome smile Nina Kervel), whose life is turned upside down when her parents abruptly change from well-to-do upper middle class people to leftist activists, with a feminist inclination concerning the mother. The whole film will describe the difficulties of a little girl who loses all of her privileges out of the blue, how she understandably rebels against such injustice (even rich kids have a cause to defend!) and who very slowly gets to understand her parents' choices, eventually coming to terms with the situation and growing mature (more mature than the standard brat) in the process.

The movie really charmed me from the beginning to the end, ringing true all the time (the early seventies are well captured, whether when it comes to the production values or the depiction of the mentalities of the time). And Julie Gavras knows her subject on the tip of her fingers. Her parents – just like Anna's ones – have always been leftist activists and wasn't her dwelling-place invaded by Chilean "barbudos" while her dad was preparing "Missing"?

The viewers share her empathy for the central character and appreciate her refusal to resort to caricature. Of course Anna's grandparents are "grand bourgeois" but they are not horrible persons. On the other hand, a leftist activist is not perfect by definition. Those ambiguities give depth to the characters and make them believable throughout. And Julie Gavras has a knack for unexpected details enhancing the viewer's interest and involvement in the story. I was particularly amused by such features as Anna adoring her catechism class, the presence of a violently anticommunist Cuban domestic worker (hence the title), the succession of nannies exiled from different countries torn by ideological conflicts, Anna singing "Ay, Carmela!" to protest against her parents quarreling and many others.

All in all, a wonderful initiation movie that augurs well for Julie Gavras' future career.

If you remember being a child confused about the 'grown ups' around you, then this film is worth watching. I thought it was going to be a heavy dark film - and it might be on one level - but it's not at all on the other, mainly because it is about seeing the ('grown up') world from a child's point of view. It reminded me a bit of Pan's Labyrinth in that way, i.e. the way there is an 'adults world' and a 'child's world', although Pan's Labyrinth focuses more on childhood escapism, but 'Blame in Fidel' is more about childhood realism. That is to say this film focuses, in a really lovely accurate way, on a child struggling to understand the real world around them, especially when the adults around her don't tell her the full story. There is no fantasy here. It's all very real. Anna clearly wants to understand what's going on. She hears snippets of conversations and tries to put it all together, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly. Definitely worth a watch!