Sister

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.

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.

Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) is a thief stealing from the foreigners at the ski resort. He lives with his aimless irresponsible sister Louise (Léa Seydoux). She's left yet another job and has questionable relationships. He gets caught by resort worker Mike (Martin Compston) but instead he starts selling the stolen skis to him. He takes bigger and bigger risks. He's an expert liar. He befriends resort patron Kristin Jansen (Gillian Anderson) pretending to be a rich kid.

It's a pretty good performance from Kacey of a ballsy character. It does need to amp up the danger for the boy. While the reveal is great, it doesn't really raise the danger. Maybe if they could add a thug looking for money or children services looking to take Simon away. Also it would be great to dig deeper into Louise's problems. Overall this is a little bit disturbing but needs to raise the tension much higher.

"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.

This movie is surely more than worth to be seen: I've been so impressed that I kept thinking for days about the characters and their fate and wishing them my best.

So, as you have probably understood the film is touching, let's say moving. Can't say if it is more the rare beauty of Louise or the remarkable talent of Simon for getting by that will affect you the most but be sure that you'll feel involved in the story as if you'd be part of it.

Needless to say that acting is perfect, scenes are catching and dialogue is most natural. I wonder whether is it a true story or not. I hope it is, otherwise I'd have to think that there is some kind of sadism in Ursula Meier's imagination.