Y aura-t-il de la neige à Noël? (1996) - film review

A young mother does her best to bring up her seven children on a vegetable farm in the South of France.  She and her children are abused and exploited by her husband, who spends most of his time away from home, staying with his first wife when he is not transporting produce to market.

This striking portrait of rural family life marked Sandrine Veysset’s remarkable directoral debut.  The film was widely acclaimed in France, winning Veysset a César and the prestigious Louis-Delluc Prize in 199.

This is not a comfortable film to watch, and the lack of coherent narrative does make the film appear slow and overly long.  It is much closer to a documentary than a conventional film drama, but the quality of the photography and Dominique Reymond’s emotionally charged performance as the struggling mother gives it a distinctive artistic quality.

The first part of the film is perhaps the most moving, with the hardship and stress of rural life being gradually exposed amidst the halcyon beauty of the sun-soaked French countryside.  As the film sinks further into gloom and doom, mirroring the change in the seasons, it becomes a little repetitive and tedious, and the final note of optimism which ends the film has a whiff of sentimentality about it. Despite this, the film is worth watching, mainly for the artistic flair Veysset demonstrates in telling this moving and highly relevant social drama.

© James Travers 2000

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