Le Père de mes enfants (2009) - film review

Film producer Grégoire Canvel has everything a man could want - a wife whom he worships, three adorable children, and a job that means everything to him.  Indeed he is so passionate about his work that he hardly knows when to stop.  Only his weekends are sacred - these he devotes to spending time with his family.  A hardworking and charismatic man, Grégoire is admired and liked by all, but for how long will his string of good fortune continue?  Already he has overreached himself.  Already he has taken too many risks.  And now he is about to pay the price.  When failure comes knocking on his door, Grégoire’s drive and optimism have all but evaporated and in their place comes despair...

Le Père de mes enfants, Mia Hansen-Love’s second directorial offering after her well-received debut feature Tout est pardonné (2007), is a powerful evocation of the conflict between professional commitment and family life, a scenario which many of us can easily relate to.  It is also a film about loyalty - loyalty to one’s family, to one’s ideals, to one’s professional associates.  Above all else, the film is about love, in particular the power of love to overcome disaster and build a lasting monument out of the scarred ruins of personal tragedy.  

The central character in the film is closely modelled on the celebrated independent film producer Humbert Balsan, whose tragic death in 2005 was a major shock to the French film industry.  In his career, Balsan produced around seventy films, including many non-commercial auteur pieces by inexperienced and little-known filmmakers of French, Asian and North African origin.  His production credits include: Sandrine Veysset’s Y'aura-t-il de la neige à Noël? (1996),  Philippe Faucon’s Samia (2000), Yolande Moreau’s Quand la mer monte... (2004) and Lars Von Trier’s Manderlay (2005).  Balsan also worked as an actor, making his screen debut as Gauvain in Robert Bresson’s Lancelot du lac (1974).  Mia Hansen-Love, a former critic on the Cahiers du cinéma, intended this film to be a tribute to Balsan, without whom French cinema would doubtless have been a poorer and less interesting place.

Part of the appeal of Le Père de mes enfants is that it takes us into a world that has seldom been portrayed in cinema, the world of the independent film producer.  Most of us have preconceptions of what film producers are like.  The image of the profit-hungry executive who extorts talented artists to finance a life of unbridled luxury is one that springs most readily to mind.   The central protagonist in Hansen-Love’s film could not be further from this stereotype and is a characterisation that is much nearer the truth.  Far from being a money-grubbing parasite, the producer in this film is shown to be a humane and committed professional, someone who is as obsessively passionate about the art of cinema as the filmmakers he takes under his wing.  In most discussions of cinema, attention is invariably centred on the directors, writers, actors and technicians.  Le Père de mes enfants reminds us of the essential role that the producer has in the creative process that culminates in the making of a film.

Not only is this an illuminating film that sheds light on the fraught activity of film production, it is also an exceptionally moving piece of drama, all the more so for the immense restraint shown by the director and her talented cast.  Hansen-Love directs the film with the delicacy and finesse of a mature cineaste, her subtle mise-en-scène allowing real emotion, not forced pathos or mawkish sentimentality, to emerge from the well-constructed narrative.  The principal actors (particularly Louis-Do de Lencquesaing and Chiara Caselli) give outstanding performances which convey, with heart-wrenching realism, the anguish their characters experience as they confront the crises that are thrown in their way.  Le Père de mes enfants is a truly remarkable film.  It enchants us with its compelling story of love triumphing over adversity and moves us deeply with its brutality and its compassion.

© James Travers 2010

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