Gamines (2009) - film review

I’m not one to complain.  I’d rather have a laugh.  For the last 30 years, I’ve reacted to all those glum sympathetic looks by saying: "I don’t have a father, but I don’t mind.  That’s just the way it is.  But I have a photo."  I also have two sisters and an Italian mother, but I have to be careful not to mention Him before Her.  Italian mothers have long memories and an unforgiving nature, a bit like a volcano.  It probably doesn’t help that I am the spitting image of Him, especially when I laugh...

Director Eléonore Faucher’s long overdue follow-up to her captivating debut feature Brodeuses (2004) is a similarly low-key realist drama that deftly evokes the impact of childhood experiences on our present adult consciousness.  Gamines was adapted from a novel of the same title by the actress-turned-author Sylvie Testud, who, appropriately, takes the lead role in the film.   Whilst the story is somewhat lacking in originality and depth, the film is well-directed and well-acted, and it engages with the spectator at a profound level, perhaps because it deals with basic truths of human experience we can all readily relate to.   The importance of family, the need to have an idea of where one comes from and feel the continuity between the past and the present - these are just some of the themes that Gamines handles with delicacy and charm.  It may not be as skilfully composed or as moving as Faucher’s excellent first film, but it is nonetheless a mature and evocative piece of cinema.

© James Travers 2012

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