La faute à Fidel!

This debut film by Julie Gavras, daughter of famed Greek-born director Costa-Gavras (e.g., Z, 1969), was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. In addition to directing, Julie Gavras also collaborated with Arnaud Cathrine on the script which they adapted from a novel by Italian novelist Domitilla Calamai. What is striking about the story is the way it reconstructs how girls become social, how they learn about their world, how they question it, and how they reconcile the contradictions, and how they grow up.

Doing the growing up is nine-year-old Anna de la Mesa, played with fidelity, wit, and skill beyond her years by Nina Kervel-Bey. She is bourgeois to the core, following the lead of her maternal grandparents, who own a vineyard in Bordeaux, and her favorite nanny and housekeeper who lost everything to the Communists when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. Her parents, however, are infatuated with the Left, especially with the rise of Allende to power in Chile. The year is 1970-71.

Anna loves their house and garden and going to Catholic school. She is proper and sensible. When they lose their house, and have to let the nanny go, and end up renting an apartment in Paris, Anna is upset and demands to know why things have changed. When it appears that they don't have as much money, Anna begins turning off the lights and turning down the heat to save money. When they want her to transfer to the public school, she demurs and a compromise is made: she can continue to go to Catholic school but she is not allowed to take Bible studies. So when that time of the day comes, she has to stand up and go outside the classroom door and wait.

But Anna is strong emotionally and intellectually. She questions everything and is not self-conscious about being singled out. The other girls may laugh, but when she gets into a fight with one of them, she manages to win her over afterwards so that they are friends, even though their parents are not.

There is in the background the political disputes between the Right and the Left, between parents who change the subject when the question how babies are made is brought up, and those who tell the truth, in short between the bourgeois and the bohemian. One gets the sense that Gavras and Anna are wiser than the disputants, and that there is something to appreciate in both ways of life.

It is impossible not to identify with little Anna, partially because she herself is so fair, and partially because it is such a thrill to see the psychology of the socialization process displayed so well and true in a movie, but also because Nina Kervel-Bey is such a powerful little actress who was so wondrously directed by Julie Gavras. This is one of the best performances by a preteen actor that I have ever seen. Kervel-Bey simply dominates the film and commands the screen.

Will Anna shed her petite bourgeois ways and embrace the politics of her parents? I highly recommend that you see this film and find out.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Hard social facts are faced from the perspective of a little and very smart and inquiring child, although there's no violent scene on the movie the political tension is well expressed by the parents and friends, to the very confussion of the girl.. i don't remember her name, but her performance is outstanding, its very interesting how she interchange her wasys from childish feelings and behavour to thoughtful and even worried attitudes, being all the time very credible, the picture has a sad background, but the bright of the girl as the protagonist gives the element of hope, being the picture not sad but quite interesting and rich, with a lot of joyful funny moments. I really recommend this great movie.

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.

BLAME IT ON FIDEL! ('La Faute à Fidel!) is an enlightening film from France's fine director Julie Gavras, a story based on the novel 'Tutta colpa di Fidel' by Domitilla Calamai that addresses the effect of major political, philosophical, and activist effects on children. What makes this fine film unique is the child's stance on the adult politics: what may seem like exciting challenges for change of an existing corrupt system for the adults may indeed be an unwanted rearrangement of the wants and needs of children whose political acumen is less advanced than the need for order and consistency in everyday life.

The story takes place in Paris in 1970 - 1971. 9-year-old Anna de la Mesa (Nina Kervel-Bey) is a bright child who loves the divinity aspects of her Catholic school and enjoys the wealthy bourgeois elegance that surrounds her. She and her little brother François (Benjamin Feuillet) are informed that their aunt, an anti-Franco activist from Spain, will be moving in with Anna and her parents Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and Marie (Julie Depardieu). This critical move incites a change in philosophy for Anna's parents and soon they become enchanted with the rise of Allende in Chile and embrace the Socialist mindset and the promised feminist movement changes, moving from their elegant house into a small apartment and demanding that Anna give up her divinity studies 'because the are against Communist thought'. As liaison in France for Chilean activists, Fernando holds strange and frequent meetings, disturbing further the life Anna loves. While little François is able to go along with the life changes, Anna rebels and refuses to alter her goals and needs merely for the 'fad' of her father's frequent trips to Chile while leaving behind her mother to continue writing articles for the ('bourgeois') French magazine Marie-Claire! As the political upheavals increase Anna is more pugnacious in demanding her rights and the finest moments of the story demonstrate how a child can respond to political change and still find her 'place' in the world that she chooses! The pacing of the film is fast and captures the exhilaration of the foment 'round the world in the early 1970s. The cast is excellent, especially the children who have not had prior exposure to acting. The message is a potent one that deserves our attention both as informative of a political era and as a piece of veritas cinema from a fine director and crew. In French and Spanish with English subtitles. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

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.)