Sister

In "Sister", we find 12-year-old Simon living a desperate life with his sister Louise in cheap public housing in an industrial town near (but literally below) a ski resort inhabited by the ultra wealthy. Louise works sporadically cleaning ski chateaus, while Simon seems to be the main breadwinner through his dubious job of swiping ski equipment and selling it as a one-man black market.

This sad story is presented in an atmospheric, minimalist way, making full use of the picturesque setting, yet managing to make the grandeur of the mountains and the luxury of the ski resort mostly just serve to make the viewer aware of the sadness of the two main characters.

The movie is definitely sociological in nature, making the viewer wish some outside party would intervene and help with this horrible situation. No particular moral or message is presented, I'm not sure one is implied even subtly, except that the world can be a very sad place for people at the bottom, even in a place like Switzerland that is often portrayed as an ideal society (it certainly isn't in this movie).

The only fault I could really find was that the movie dwells for so long on Simon's thefts in the first half of the movie, which are not all that entertaining, and beyond establishing that his life is like that, I'm not sure that we really needed the full 45 minutes of him being a ski resort kleptomaniac. Nothing else in the movie felt unnecessary, or even worthy of criticism... for what it is trying to be, this movie is quite good, especially in the second half.

My only advice is to not expect anything upbeat. I found this movie rather depressing. That hardly means it's not a good movie, of course. Just brace yourself for one sad slice of life.

Some films just can't be improved, this is one of this rare class. Like Lorna's Silence and of course the Dardenne bros, we've got the sociological view of the poor and alone among the rich and powerful. This alone is better than most of what is filmed, but what makes this gem stand from the crowd? The story is powerful, never faltering, and yet without low blows. And with the classic "slow/ ethnographic" moments that have make "French film" famous or infamous, according to tastes :).

Simon steals the movie, and that's no small feat given the other main character is Léa Seydoux, probably too pretty for the role, but so well "dressed" and such a good actress that you almost never see in her the "Cannes Star" one is expecting, only a beautiful woman who happens to be poor and with an awful taste for men.

"Mike", "Christin" (the classy blonde) and J. F. Stévenin's baddie teach us in one lesson that whoever's got money or power, even if just a bit more than you, will probably humiliate you as soon as he/ she can.

This is a film probably only understandable for those of us who've been thou hard times, economically as well as socially (notice Louise and Simon have no friends, S. may have one client and then an unlikely sidekick, and Louise has her "men" but they have no social life, no "life" beyond "pasta and toilet paper" as Simon wryly says to Mike as to what he does with the $ he gets from his thefts.

Simon has some points in common with Truffaut's 400 blows, as Argentine critic Diego Battle aptly writes. He's so chillingly natural that we only hope he can be as good as J.-P. Léaud, or even better!

Léa, from "La vie d'Adéle" (Palme d'or at Cannes 2013') has a feline beauty as well as some "hidden anger" that suits our character perfectly. I never understood how she spends her money so quickly, as we may understand she gets money from hustling, also from Simon, and yet she's always broke.

Agnès Godard makes magic with the greyish-white Alpine settings, always showing how harsh weather may be warm compared with the people down there. You may not be eager to go to skiing after having watched this masterpiece!

John Parish's music is hypnotic and costume design are perfect. Everything in their house is ugly, like poor Simon's tacky bed sheets. (This reminds me of Lorna's silence, whose winter clothing always looked bad on her, herself a beautiful woman). Even when they but something brand new, it doesn't work as supposed, like the oven Simon wanted. Everything that enter the house sort of gets "soiled". They are always washing clothes.

The ending's got a clear symbolism, I owe this to IMDb reviewer Dan Frazen. My favourite scene is Simon and his young apprentice stealing kid's wallets, leaving aside the toys with cool efficiency, complaining when "they only have coins" and flushing all what they don't want down the toilet.

I'm eager to watch Ursula Meier's debut, "Home". I am sure she'll keep up the greatness.

Glad to see so many positive reviews of this one. It's a fascinating, powerful film about two young people—a potty-mouthed artful dodger and a soft-faced older girl he calls "frangine" ("sis")—trying to live by their wits at a Swiss ski resort. Léa Seydoux's sulky beauty makes her perfect for the role of Louise; Kacey Mottet Klein, then barely into his teens, gives an amazing performance as Simon. Didn't recognize Gillian Anderson as the Englishwoman who takes a motherly interest. The slangy (not to say skanky) dialogue may be useful to students of advanced conversational French. Ursula Meier's first feature, "Home," is a total headtrip, longer on concept than plot and reminiscent of 50s absurdist satires of modern life by Ionesco and Jacques Tati; this one has real visceral impact. Both "Sister" and "Home" are available on streaming Netflix.

Really well done movie. I wanted to feel sorry for the pair of them, but I just couldn't, they were too unlikeable with their actions. But then part of me understood why they were both like that.

"L'enfant d'en haut" the title in French, is "Sister" in English. I had to strain a little with my mother tongue to work out the title - My literal translation gave "The child from above" But after watching the movie I concluded that it perhaps was The child from the mountain top. This seemed more appropriate for me. As for "Sister" This also can be thought as fairly appropriate.

I was rather annoyed at the first half, depicting a child stealing as the only way to get by and supporting a derelict sister who did not seem to do anything to help herself. I felt there was such waste of energy and little constructive to offer in a world already saturated by petty crimes.

But as the story continued it became a lot more interesting and meaningful and kept me totally engrossed to see the outcome.

Before coming to IMDb I checked "Allo Cine" a similar site in French. There were the two last worst and best review. The worst one gave only 1/2 a mark stating that the "bourgeois" did it again as usual transferring their own hangup to the "poor" society to which they have not insight or idea about its living condition. ( or something to this effect). I believe most of us in some ways are isolated in our own social surrounding and it takes much effort to look or want to look at others introspectively. There are always some reasons for us to go one way or the other regardless of who we are or where we are. So I dismiss this view that states such disdain on the part of "the better of people" Some are very comfortable thanks to their hard work and also sometime a little luck. I don't think this film is set out to ease the rich people's burden to be different than their not so wealthy counterpart.

I see a very good attempt to zoom down unto a very sad situation and portrait its protagonist in a very raw manner to an excellent result. I also admire the finish, simple but emphatic to the depth of its sorry situation.