This compelling film concerns the specific plight of a woman experiencing an excruciating episode of post partum depression, one that causes her to abandon her family and flirt with a complete breakdown. The author of the film has used this event to depict with stunning depth and understanding the underlying impulses, needs and desires of a whole range of characters, most particularly, a female neighbor of the depressed woman who takes her into her home and offers her unconditional support. The layers of insight run quite deep, taking the moviegoer into the lives of adults and children, into relationships between married couples, lovers (adulterous and otherwise), parents and children, friends and neighbors. There's a quality of empathy that the filmmaker clearly feels that she manages to convey on film. The camera never shies from dynamic close-ups of some very expressive faces. The acting is uniformly superb, creating characters that are real in an everyday sense without the slightest concession to glamour. The script is filled with small moments that ring absolutely true and that often resonate beyond the particulars of the film's plot. As a man, and a city dweller, who readily perceives the limits of my obligations to strangers in need, I had my consciousness raised as to just what the potential of unconditional empathy might be.
Review of Le lait de la tendresse humaine
