-By Doris Toumarkine
For movie details, please click here.
It’s Swiss Family Robbin’ in Ursula Meier’s French-Swiss
co-production
Sister, Switzerland’s official submission for
Oscar Best Foreign-Language film consideration. This modest tale of
thievery and struggle could have upped the stakes with some fiery
class collisions, but light social drama trumps any grandstanding
here. Fussier art-house audiences won’t be disappointed, as Léa
Seydoux (
Farewell, My Queen, Midnight in Paris, etc.), young
Kacey Mottet Klein (the excellent
Gainsbourg: A Heroic
Life), and the unique settings make it all worthwhile.
Simon (Klein) is a 12-year-old who spends his time stealing
expensive ski equipment and food from the popular ski resort atop
the mountain that overlooks the small apartment he shares in a boxy
complex on the barren, snowless industrial plain below with his
sister Louise (Seydoux), a fun-loving sort with a weakness for the
wrong kind of guy.
At least Simon has his stealing down to a science (until unforeseen
circumstances). He knows where and when to find the goods to steal
and has a system that lets him transport the booty down to the
valley, where he sells his haul to mostly young, returning
customers.
Louise tolerates the petty crimes, as she’s otherwise focused and
soon takes off with Bruno (Yann Tregouet), another loser who has
nothing more to offer than a snazzy BMW. It’s Christmas, but Louise
has no problem leaving Simon on his own, even as it’s soon revealed
that she is actually his mother. Her assurance to him is that he’s
still with her even though everyone else wanted her to give him
up.
Bruno dumps Louise, the mother and child bond, Simon runs into
trouble with resort kitchen helper Mike (Martin Compston) and the
chef himself (Jean-François Stevenin), but for vacationers all ends
well, if not for the folks below.
Winner of a Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival,
Sister is most memorable for its performances, especially
Seydoux’s in an amazing stretch from the subdued reader of
Farewell, My Queen and by Klein, who suggests, unlike Simon,
quite a future.
Film Review: Sister
This assured look at a renegade young brother/trashy older sister duo in a dreary apartment complex on a barren Swiss valley plain dominated by a posh ski resort above underscores the divide between the “have-nots” and the vacationing “haves.”
Oct 4, 2012
-By Doris Toumarkine
For movie details, please click here.
It’s Swiss Family Robbin’ in Ursula Meier’s French-Swiss co-production
Sister, Switzerland’s official submission for Oscar Best Foreign-Language film consideration. This modest tale of thievery and struggle could have upped the stakes with some fiery class collisions, but light social drama trumps any grandstanding here. Fussier art-house audiences won’t be disappointed, as Léa Seydoux (
Farewell, My Queen, Midnight in Paris, etc.), young Kacey Mottet Klein (the excellent
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life), and the unique settings make it all worthwhile.
Simon (Klein) is a 12-year-old who spends his time stealing expensive ski equipment and food from the popular ski resort atop the mountain that overlooks the small apartment he shares in a boxy complex on the barren, snowless industrial plain below with his sister Louise (Seydoux), a fun-loving sort with a weakness for the wrong kind of guy.
At least Simon has his stealing down to a science (until unforeseen circumstances). He knows where and when to find the goods to steal and has a system that lets him transport the booty down to the valley, where he sells his haul to mostly young, returning customers.
Louise tolerates the petty crimes, as she’s otherwise focused and soon takes off with Bruno (Yann Tregouet), another loser who has nothing more to offer than a snazzy BMW. It’s Christmas, but Louise has no problem leaving Simon on his own, even as it’s soon revealed that she is actually his mother. Her assurance to him is that he’s still with her even though everyone else wanted her to give him up.
Bruno dumps Louise, the mother and child bond, Simon runs into trouble with resort kitchen helper Mike (Martin Compston) and the chef himself (Jean-François Stevenin), but for vacationers all ends well, if not for the folks below.
Winner of a Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival,
Sister is most memorable for its performances, especially Seydoux’s in an amazing stretch from the subdued reader of
Farewell, My Queen and by Klein, who suggests, unlike Simon, quite a future.
