Papa

I actually had intended to see this film on the annual Hamburg Film Festival as this was going to be the only chance to see this film in Hamburg on a big screen. French films very often don't get a release in this (stupid) country of mine, so best take the chance you get. But on the very day I wasn't in the mood to go out and therefore I didn't see it. I didn't know by the time what I had just missed out on.

Half a year later I was able to buy the film on DVD, as there were English subtitles on the French DVD, a glorious idea the French sometimes have, hence I could understand the film (my French is sort of non-existent). And only now I realized what an idiot I had been not seeing this film on the big screen.

This is so far the most beautiful film I've seen this year and after having seen two handful of films with Alain Chabat, this is now my favourite of his.

I can't find another word to describe this film than beautiful. The script, the direction, the camera work, the light, the choice of music and most of all the choice of actors is perfect. The only thing which also might have been slightly different is the title, as I think "Papa et son fils" would have made a good title as well. The son is as important as the dad, he could have been mentioned in the title too.

What really amazes me is that here is a film that works while it has no story. Films need a story, otherwise there is nothing to tell, one seems to think. But here is a film that works without a story. Because "a father and his son are driving in a car" isn't a story. And yet there is so much happening and not happening, said and not said, in the end you have seen a film with no story but so much to tell. Whatever you get to see, they drive in the car and sing to the music, the father jokes around, they stop to have lunch on a parking lot, they find a petrol station - everything that happens is just so normal, it happened to every one of us before, and yet there is something lurking underneath, the viewer gets soon the feeling, something is wrong here, not normal, and starts to wonder what it could be. And soon we get glimpses of what is the trouble. And still we know, these lovable characters, these two people, father and son, will manage to handle this, their lives.

This is one of the most realistic and at the same time beautiful films I've ever seen and all I can do is thank the writer/director to have had the courage to make this film. Chapeau! And thanks also to both leading actors who are more than performing in this as often it looks as rather like a documentary than an acting performance. I don't know whether French people see Alain Chabat more like a comedian or an actor, I think he is an awfully good actor and this is his strongest performance to date. Merci beaucoup.

Louis, a young boy, and his father drive, fill the car up with diesel, buy food to eat, and drive again... That's enough for a story. But a lot of things are happening between them. Because in a car all you can do is talk. Everyone would love to have such a Dad : he laughs and plays jokes nonstop. Though Louis doesn't seem convinced. He's even sad. A terrible accident had hit their family.

You understand this story only at the end and i really loved this. It's the only time I saw such a film : it's simple, no action, but it's wonderful. Alan Chabat is surprising. It is also the first time I see a movie that is filmed in a car from the beginning to the end, i really did like it : I laughed, i was emotionally touched, and i was surprised. The father is very touching. A movie to watch.

One might be surprised to see Maurice Barthélémy, a member of the comic company "Les Robins des Bois", write and direct such a simple, modest and deep movie. But that would be forgetting that most comics are sensitive human beings, therefore at ease in drama or tragedy, while the opposite is not always true : great tragedians do not necessarily have a sense of humor.

I must admit that the beginning of the film left me perplexed. With only two characters (Daddy and eight-year-old Louis) and a car, with a propensity to avoid action, wasn't I about to get awfully bored? This sensation didn't last long since the author deftly interspersed his "lazy" narrative with funny scenes such as : Daddy lifting diminutive Louis to make him level with the adult-size urinal ; Daddy's crazy dancing to the cheesy song "Jésus est né en Provence" ; Daddy playing the western saloon bartender. Other short sequences or scenes were moving such as : Daddy lulling Louis to sleep in a hotel room ; Daddy soothing Sonny after a fit of nerves. Nevertheless, half into the (short-running) film, I started wondering : would I ever remember "Papa"? The plot had indeed been so thin hitherto that I feared the movie might soon vanish in the haze of my memory.

Such was not the case. On the contrary. The explanation is obvious. Barthélémy had intentionally doled out information about the characters' recent past in the first half, reserving it for the second part. Then little by little I was made to understand why father and son behaved the way they did - at times somewhat weirdly. And the very minute the last picture faded from the screen I started thinking about all I had seen instead of forgetting the whole thing. The shock of the revelation is still haunting me days after the screening of "Papa".

Psychologically accurate, genuinely moving (not a moment of easy pathos), played to perfection by Alain Chabat (one of his best performances to date, in a character close to his real life personality)and young Martin Combes ( who is able to translate the feeling of guilty sadness eating away his character at such a young age), "Papa"is highly recommended to anyone who has a heart.