User Reviews

It's evident and it deserves to be mentioned. When Jacques Doillon films children (un Sac De Billes, 1975) or teenagers (la Drôlesse, 1979, Le Petit Criminel, 1990), it's what he does best and especially when he pores over the dark sides of childhood and adolescence like rejection, misunderstanding, lack of love or the death of dear close relatives. "Ponette" revolves around the latest of these things. This cute 4 year old little girl lost her mother (Marie Trintignant,a sinister omen for her tragic fate some years later) and is persuaded she will see her again. So, she embarks on a long waiting which makes her father (Xavier Beauvois) and the grown-ups incensed. Her aunt (Claire Nebout) tries to provide her solace with the help of religious creeds but does she really believe in them? At the start of a new school year, she is sent at boarding school with her cousins and in a small church, asks God to talk to her mother. Then, in a graveyard in front of her mother's grave, a miracle happens.

The first thing that springs to mind after the viewing is that you would like to hail Doillon for the remarkable work he has provided with the children. He said that he listened many conversations between children for months before rewriting them in dialogs and that's the main reason why his film has a larger than life vibe. Sometimes, you even wonder if you don't watch a documentary. Working with children on a film set is very hard to do but it's evident here that Doillon did everything possible to prepare his very young actors mentally to his cinematographic demands. So, little Victoire Thivisol and her partners really live their texts and it's the world perceived with children's eyes that is one of the real motors of the film.

In another extent, Doillon walks away with the honors of a tricky topic: how can the life of a beloved human being can be perceived by her children? The Scottish Peter Mullan will bring his own answer in his moody "Orphans" (1997) and here, Ponette thinks she will see her mother again because she is seduced by the religious tenets her aunt tells to her. And when her mother appears beside her in the graveyard, it's a real foray into the fantastic without the unpleasant impression of a break in tone because the little girl is the only one to experiment this. During their short moment together her mother tells her: "I won't be able to stay with you but before I definitely leave, promise me one thing: don't complain, savor life as much as you can". We aren't very far from one of the key lines in John Frankenheimer's "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962): "the first duty of life is to live" and it's the message Doillon left in his work. Ponette is bound to have understood the lesson and to follow this piece of advice. Perhaps you will keep it in your heart too after the viewing.

So, from a murky starting point, Doillon manages to create a piece of work with a startling realism and an uplifting message. If you're sensitive to these features, "Ponette" will leave you elated. Highly recommended and I would advise you to watch it several times because very young children are often difficult to decipher in their lines. So, be patient and you will be rewarded.

Four year old Ponette loses her mother in a car crash and has to cope with the loss. Her pain is great, and she finds little support from the other adults around her. Her father seems very confused and drives off to some undefined place very soon after the accident. His conversations with her make him seem pushy and scared, he is generally unable to take care of her. Every adult seems to have a different opinion about what happens to people when they die, and so do the children she meets at school.

Ponette obviously doesn't understand what has happened and tries to conjure her mother back into life. The other children tell her horrible stories or are completely insensitive at some times, but at other moments some make good friends. I was amazed by this movie: I much admired the brilliant acting and the very understandable psychology at work in everything that transpired.

But then suddenly, in the last ten minutes of the movie, something happens that just doesn't ring true. I won't give away the details for those who are prepared to be disappointed and want to see the film to the end; but I can tell you it will be a happy end (albeit not for me), for Ponette suddenly undergoes a transformation after which she has found back her joy in life. The movie doesn't provide a clue as to why Ponette would suddenly be able to let go of her pain. It is not as if she has something terribly good to live for, nor has she learned to give her pain a place in her life. None of the religious questions that are touched in the story are answered, it is as if someone has pushed a switch to make her happy. I found the sudden abundance of morality and philosophy in the last few minutes very annoying as well. I was caring for this child! I didn't need to be told fancy phrases, just what really happened to poor Ponette...

Ponette is the story of a young French girl (4 years old) who's mother suddenly dies. It's a tough situation to explain to someone this young what exactly that means, and even more so when it's someone so close to them. The father, unsure of how to explain to Ponette that her mom is in fact, not coming back, and unable to convince her that the visions she keeps having of her mother being around every now and then, he sends her away for a while to live with friends and to cope with her loss as best as the adults and young friends around her can help her do.

Victoire Thivisol, as the young Ponette, does a great job. I hadn't thought about it before that, as another view points out, this was not the fake sorrow of an actress with glycerine tears and such, all of the performance was real. And, although the story is interesting in that you see how a young kid might actually react to the death of someone they know and love, and how others might help them to cope with that, I was annoyed that about three quarters of the movie was Ponette crying over one thing or another. I suppose this is quite unsympathetic on my part to think that, damn, this kid is crying again? In all, I say that this film is for an audience that particularly enjoys its emotional dramas. Ponette has a lot to offer there. For others, the story may become either repetitive or just altogether dull to sit through, as at least one viewer has already expressed.

I can't believe this came out 13 years ago. I feel like I just read the raves about the central performance like... four years ago. I've been meaning to see it. The movie concerns itself with how a four year old deals with the death of her mother. As anyone can tell you, the main child performance is excellent and remarkable. As hard as it is for an adult to come to terms with death, it must be heartbreaking to watch your child attempt to deal with it.

But the movie has some big problems. I was surprised that after the early scenes which have at most one or two other actors in them, that adults go missing for the majority of the film. Unfortunately, this leaves the movie to present a certain type of "all children" scene over and over. For about ninety-five percent of its running time, toddling children are shown playing and hopelessly trying to make sense of death. It stays in that place for just too long. 40 minutes of the kids trying to comprehend super-natural rules for the dead, feels like an hour and a half. The kids can offer no insight; just verisimilitude, a lonely conceit that requires some support. For most of its length, Ponette is crying or confused. It just doesn't develop. I wish I could have seen Ponette interact with adults around her, in even the most rudimentary plot. Who are these awful parents who leave a toddler to fend for herself in wrestling with death?

Wherever the movie goes, there is no shaking its belief that the answer to its dramatic problem is more talking. Having chosen such a small scale to encounter this material, it's not a surprise when the movie has no ending. It culminates in a gratuitous, conventional and sentimental wish-fulfillment scene filmed literally; it is not a fantasy as some insist, because a child's mind cannot manufacture the details we witness of her mothers return. It's just cheap.

Both Spirit of the Beehive and The 400 Blows go more interesting places with material concerning childhood.

Although I found this to be one of the most affecting films that I have seen, I was, nevertheless, astounded at the real depth of feeling shown by the young children in this film.

Victoire Thivisol carries absolute sincerity in her portrayal of the recently bereaved young girl, with a realism beyond belief when one considers her tender age. The other children also played their parts with a conviction that would be considered commendable in mature actors with many more years of experience to draw on.

As has been noted elsewhere, the graveside apparition of Marie Trintignant as Ponette's mother does seem a fanciful afterthought to give the story a kind of closure, but it is hard to see how the film could have been brought to a conclusion without a similar contrivance.

Not a film for the overly sentimental, and I include myself. After watching the film, I bought the DVD, but I,m still waiting the right time to rewatch it.

The girl is very good, extraordinary really. The breath and depth of the part she plays would challenge the greatest actresses. She is also very beautiful. She has beautiful eyes and thick, luxurious hair.

But this is also a tour de force for Director Jacques Doillon who, one can see, taught the children to act, while they in turn taught him about their world. The magic on the screen is the magic in the world of the children and what they feel. We see them cope with the world they have been thrust into. We watch as they struggle to make sense of it through experience, fantasy and play. We see how they learn to distinguish between what adults think is real and what they themselves discover is real.

Her father is a rationalist and is concerned that his daughter's prolonged sadness about her mother's accidental death is "crazy." He tells her he will not yell at her if she stops acting crazy. She wisely tells him she will. Already she is learning to placate the world and its madness; already we see that she is working out what is "crazy" and what is not, and right now she is not sure which is which. Her father does not believe in a personal god, but the women taking care of her do, and so do the other children. She does not know what to believe but she wants to believe in anything that will bring her mother back or allow her to talk to her mother.

One may wonder how Doillon was able to get the children to be so good. It's clear he had to immerse himself in their world and win their respect. He had to listen to them and remember what it was like to be a child. These children are creating their world, as all children are, right before our eyes, and usually we do not see because we are so filled with our own lives and with our preconceptions. The children must learn the world and experience it all for themselves, regardless of what we think. Doillon shows us that process through the eyes of the children and especially through the extraordinary eyes of four-year-old Victoire Thivisol, who will steal your heart and soul, I promise.

There is something of the spirit of the lives of the saints in this film of and about a child. We see this in Ponette's struggle to believe in a God would take her mother and not answer her. She is a saint as a little girl, and she is her very own doubting Thomas. But she does not give in to despair. She talks to God and when God does not answer, her rationalist streak takes hold and she demands to know why he doesn't answer her. When she is blamed by a mean little boy for causing her mother's death, she doubts herself and wants to die. Pretending is not enough for her.

Unlike some others I thought the ending was good. I think the problem was the way the latter part of the scene in the graveyard was filmed with the false color, too hurriedly, and (especially) the unconvincing performance of the woman who played her mother.

The final words of the film, "She told me to learn to be happy" are at once great words of wisdom that we all might heed; but at the same time these words are her first compromise with a profane world, in a sense her first lie, her first "sin." It is fitting that they were spoken to her father with the underlying understanding that men will want you to be happy and will be dissatisfied with you if you are not. Her little pleasing half smile from the car seat for him shows us that she has learned she will have to put on a face for the world, and she will. Nonetheless one feels there will be a part of her that will remain hers alone.

This is a beautiful, touching, and spiritually moving film, an original work of art.

(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!)