Mon père est ingénieur

I began watching 'My Father is an Engineer' with no preconceptions at all, not having seen any other films from the director, nor knowing the subject of this film. It began with the a couple much like Joseph and Mary, only in a modern French setting. This fable continued for a little longer, until it became revealed that it was a story being read to a near-catatonic woman by an older lady. The younger of the women turns out to be Natasha, a pediatrician amongst the poor in Marseilles, and a political activist. She is the central character, and the rest of the film delves into her story, through flashbacks, and the contradiction that she represents.

Natasha, it turns out, was born of a Christian mother (the lady reading her favourite stories in the belief that they may help her out of her current dumb state), and a communist father. This pairing is symbolised best in her nativity sets, which are both quite elaborate, but which, as a concession to her father, lack the infant Jesus in the manger. Much of Natasha's life up until the event which provoked her current state of incommunication (shown near the end) involved another doctor called Jeremy, her long-term lover. Jeremy has a family of his own, though these are never shown, and apart from social work and politics, he is Natasha's true love, even if his own politics seems distinct to hers.

Set closer to the present is another love story, another pairing of contradictions: a teenage girls, born of immigrant parents, and her beau, Rachid, against whom the girl's father has taken a great disliking.

I won't go into the many revelations relating to these relationships and their evolution, but it is interesting that the director Guedigian is himself an arch-communist - interesting because this film is far more involved than the political rant one might have expected. The characters are all well-rounded, convincing combinations of idealism and personal weakness. Their complexity is reflected in a combination of religious imagery and social realism. One might even say that through the story of the Nativity a balance is found: the Mother of God does indeed find no welcome at the inn. It is certainly a theme that is returned to several times in the film.

The acting by all concerned is superb. Apparently they have worked a lot together, and they really seem to gel as a unit, while playing their roles with utter conviction. The story progresses smoothly, keeping the viewer hooked for each new revelation about Natasha, her past and her present. There are also some political points well worth chewing upon also, though, consistent with the tone of the film, they are as much matters of simple humanity as they are about politics. I don't know how this film stands in relation to the rest of the director's work, but I found it convincing, insightful and entertaining.

It's possible that I missed the odd nuance or three that may have shed some light on why a dyed-in-the-wool communist like Guediguian should choose for his latest film to give us his take on the Nativity. Those with long memories will recall how the total abhorrence of the communist for the Christian informed a whole slew of Don Camillo novels and at least one great movie so how does Guediguian reconcile the two? Alas, I can't help you there, what I can do is recommend without reservation this latest addition to his ouevre. I used to think of Marseille, if I thought of it at all, as primarily the place where Yves Montand spent his childhood and where he did his first gigs in the late thirties. Supplementary to this it was where Marcel Pagnol set his great trilogy and where Montand returned in Trois place pour le 26th but for the last decade or so it has been the location of the Robert Guediguian Repertory company, led by his wife, Ariane Ascaride and her two leading men, Gerard Meylan and Jean-Pierre Darroussin with Pascale Roberts, Jacques Boudet and Christine Brucher adding strength and depth. Unlike Ken Loach, who is so obsessed with getting his message across that he forgets to first entertain Guediguian always gives us a first rate story and if the price we have to pay is about half a reel of let's hear it for the oppressed, downtrodden workers, then we are happy to do so. These actors have played together so many times and in so many permutations that they could phone it in by now but they still continue to give 110 per cent. This could well be the year of the feet in French cinema; Patrice Leconte began Confidences trop intimes with a traveling shot of a pair of feet that turned out to belong to Sandrine Bonnaire and here Guediguian starts on TWO pairs of feet and an impression of a pair of Arabs. Eventually we see Darroussin, bizarrely dressed in Arab clothing and Ascaride looking fatigued and toting two or three large bundles, moving slowly, silently, through a concrete wasteland and stopping at last outside what looks suspiciously like a lock-up garage. Darroussin pounds on the door, a couple of clochards tell him to take a hike whereupon Ascaride collapses and Darroussin explains that she is slightly enceinte. By now these images plus an Arabic soundtrack reminiscent of The Hairdresser's Husband sets us to thinking, no room at the inn? No, can't be. On the other hand ... Then we see Darroussin and Ascaride in normal life, paediatricians with a strong sense of community to the extent that Ascaride is active in social work. Then, inexplicably, she appears semi-comatose and incapable of speech. It is tempting to read into her fantastically expressive face that in repose resembles nothing so much as Harpo Marx, a metaphor combining muteness with socialism but that's the way this film takes you. Ascaride gets better with every performance and is one of the best examples of the less-is-more school. Robert de Niro has been praised extravagantly for putting on about three tons to play Jake La Motta, but a REAL actor could make you BELIEVE he weighed as much as a small house. Ascaride is far from beautiful but she IS a great actress and she can make you BELIEVE she's beautiful as she does at some point in every film she plays in. This is a more than worthy addition to the Geuediguian collection. 9/10