Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante (2009)

Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante is a French film first released in 2009, directed by Claude Miller and Nathan Miller.  The film stars Vincent Rottiers, Sophie Cattani, Christine Citti, Yves Verhoeven and Chantal Banlier.  It has also been released under the title: I’m Glad that My Mother Is Alive.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Thomas was four when he and his younger brother were adopted by Yves and Annie.  When he is twelve, he becomes obsessed with finding his biological mother, Julie.  Thomas’s adopted parents become concerned when he starts behaving aggressively and have no choice but to help him.  Thomas finally manages to track down his birth mother, but naturally she does not recognise him...

For his latest film, veteran director Claude Miller teams up with son Nathan to deliver an intense drama which, appropriately enough, explores the problematic relationship between parents and their children.  It is a subject that Claude Miller has explored in earlier films - L’Effrontée (1985) and La Classe de neige (1998) - but here the story is taken from a real-life case and is tackled in a more naturalistic vein, not too far removed from the style of the Dardenne brothers.  This is Nathan Miller’s first feature as a director; he had previously worked as a camera operator on some of his father’s films - Betty Fisher (2001) and La Petite Lili (2003) - and directed a short film, La Tartine (2000). 

Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante has the essence of an extremely powerful piece of drama, but its impact is greatly diminished by its overly fragmented narrative structure.  Much of the story is told using flashbacks, to the extent that the central narrative thrust is weakened and the film takes too long to establish any kind of coherence.  It doesn’t help that there is also an obvious conflict of styles (which presumably reflects the alternative approaches favoured by the two directors).  The film looks as if it cannot make up its mind whether to go for full-blown cinéma vérité realism or stick with the more conventional (and visually less interesting) approach.

Although the film’s fragmented structure and clash of styles is certainly off-putting, these do (serendipitously) help to accentuate the fractured nature of the identity of the main character, Thomas, the youngster who is obsessed with finding his biological mother.  It soon becomes apparent that Thomas’s main motivation for finding his mother is so that he can work out who he is and become a well-adjusted adult.  He is not really looking for his mother; he is actually looking for his own true self.  His mother’s ambivalent feelings for her son naturally exacerbate his cracked identity and propels the story towards its dramatic ending.  

If this hodge-podge of a film holds together at all, this probably has more to do with the contributions from the lead actors than from the combined efforts of the two directors.  Vincent Rottiers is particularly impressive as the thoroughly mixed up Thomas, bringing a sinister intensity to the part that makes you unsure whether he is a victim looking for a way of his own personal Hell or a psychopath who is looking for someone to victimise.  Rottiers previously distinguished himself in Christophe Ruggia’s Les Diables (2002) and Xavier Giannoli’s À l’origine (2009) and is emerging as one of France’s finest young film actors.

© James Travers 2010

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