Donne-moi la main (2009) - film review

Antoine and Quentin are two 18-year-old identical twins, living in France with their father.   When they learn of the death of their mother, they take to the road, intending to hitchhike to Spain to attend her funeral.  On the way, the two brothers get to know one another better and soon discover that they are not so alike as they had thought...

There’s nothing like a nice long walk in the country to expunge all that pent-up teenage-angst and resolve the issue of one’s identity and sexual orientation.  In his remarkable debut feature, writer-director Pascal-Alex Vincent takes the well-worn genres of road movie and coming-of-age drama and weaves these into a perceptive and refreshingly distinctive portrait of two brothers searching for their identity as they hitchhike their way across France.  Although slow-paced and virtually plotless, Donne-moi la main (aka Give Me Your Hand - yes, the innuendo is deliberate) has a raw immediacy that makes it easy to engage with the two central characters as their happy little pilgrimage to Spain slowly morphs into a harrowing existential odyssey in which wild oats are both sown and reaped with a vengeance.

The extreme paucity of plot and dialogue do not diminish the film’s power but rather contribute an aura of ambiguity and mystery, reflecting the inner confusion that assails the two protagonists as they undertake their fraught journey of discovery.  The fact that the brothers are identical twins makes it more crucial for them to discover who they are, as outwardly there is virtually nothing to distinguish them.  Like us, they seem to assume that they are similar in every way, so when they realise just how different they really are the ensuing break-down in their relationship is that much more intense and extreme.  To quote the immortal Bard, there's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

That Pascal-Alex Vincent is a life-long devotee of American road movies and classical Japanese films is evident in his film - in the long periods of silence, where feelings are conveyed not by words but purely by images, and also in the way that the landscape (the achingly beautiful countryside of the Poitou-Charentes region of France) becomes woven into the narrative and reflects the changing mood of the protagonists.  Another Japanese influence is the amusing Manga-style animated sequence which prefaces the film, a burst of auteur fun which introduces the main characters and effectively eliminates the need for a chunk of dialogue-heavy exposition.

Playing the two leads are Alexandre and Victor Carril, a pair of identical twins who had previously featured in Vincent’s attention-grabbing short Bébé requin (2005).   These two actors are so alike that they would be completely indistinguishable were it not for the fact that one of them (Alexandre) sports a facial scar to remind us that he is the adventurous heterosexual hedonist.  The similarity in the way the Carril brothers look and behave is uncanny, and this is what makes their characters’ attempts to forge their own identity so intensely fascinating.  It is a shame that Vincent chooses to distinguish the twins by their sexual orientation, as this feels like an easy cop out.  A more subtle delineation would have been more in-keeping with the low-key style of the film.  That said, the Carrils’ performances carry such depth and conviction that this one plot contrivance is easily overlooked.

Enigmatic, sensual and indefinably alluring, Donne-moi la main is an understated and yet powerful evocation of adolescent self-discovery, crafted with immense sensitivity and insight.  The film’s beguiling artistry belies the stark economy of its mise-en-scène and threadbare narrative and lends it a rare poetic quality that engages with the spectator at a very primitive level, leaving a lasting impression.  This original and deeply personal slice of life marks a very promising debut for director Pascal-Alex Vincent and his two lead actors.

© James Travers 2010

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