PONETTE Movie Review

Four-year-old Ponette (Victorie Thivisol), whose mother has died in a car accident, progresses through stages of grieving, ultimately emerging—together with the audience—at a glorious and completely new awareness of what it means to be alive. Ponette wants to know what death is—what it means—and the more questions she asks grown-ups, the more we realize they haven't a clue. She must answer the question for herself, as we all must sooner or later. This searingly emotional new film from the gifted Jacques Doillon is one of the most powerful and affecting works ever made about childhood, and about the different ways we leave it. It is a daring film on a number of levels, not the least of which was Doillon's simple commercial gamble that anyone would voluntarily sit down in a theatre for an hour and a half to see a child go through this kind of emotional wringer. But as in any great film on a difficult, or “non-commercial” subject, Ponette's unblinking honesty and its refusal to sentimentalize allows us the privilege of reaping the exhilarating rewards that accompany emergence from the other side of a black hole. One might conceivably question whether a four-year-old's performance can truly be called “acting,” but the Venice Film Festival jury sure thought so—they gave little Victorie Thivisol the Festival's Best Actress Prize. As Ponette, she gives—and there is simply no other word—a miraculous performance. She's an equal partner with Doillon in allowing us to understand the emotional growth and thought processes of a child, thereby letting us all understand our adult selves that much better.

NEXT STOP … Forbidden Games, The 400 Blows, Pother Panchali

1995 107m/C FR Victorie Thivisol, Marie Trintignant, Claire Nebout, Xavier Beauvois; D: Jacques Doillon; W: Jacques Doillon. New York Film Critics Awards ‘97: Best Foreign Film; Venice Film Festival ‘96: Best Actress (Thivisol). VHS NYR