À moi seule (2012)
Directed by Frédéric Videau

Film Review

Writer-director Frédéric Videau has been off the radar for almost a decade, having made a promising filmmaking debut with his first two features Le Fils de Jean-Claude Videau (2001) and Variété française (2003).  Now he is back, with one of the most unusual and provocative French films of the year.  À moi seule (a.k.a. Coming Home) is loosely based on the real-life story of Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a garage cellar from the age of ten for eight years (between 1998 and 2006).  Not only has Kampusch capitalised on her experiences to make herself a celebrity in her own country, but her story has inspired several books and films since, most notably Markus Schleinzer's Michael (2011).  The thing that most motivated Videau to make his film was the complete lack of malice that Kampusch bore her kidnapper; in spite of all the atrocious things he did to her, she was able to forgive him and sympathise with him.  How could such a thing be possible?  This is what Videau sets out to explore in his film.

Videau is not interested in presenting a realistic drama but rather something more in the manner of a modern fable, intended to challenge and provoke through its unromanticised portrayal of an ambiguous relationship between a kidnapper and his victim.  The suspense time-bomb is diffused in the film's opening sequence, which shows Gaëlle being set free by her abductor.  Thereafter, the film switches back and forth between the girl's past and future experiences, inter-cutting scenes of her imprisonment with those depicting her fraught attempts to readjust to a normal family life.  The film's fragmented narrative structure is presumably intended to reflect the confused state of mind of the heroine as she struggles to grow accustomed to her freedom, but it is weakened by an obvious dramatic asymmetry.  Videau is clearly far more interested in the period of Gaëlle's imprisonment and invests far less effort in dealing with the events that follow her release.  This is the film's one and only flaw.

The main point of interest is the inordinately complex relationship that develops between the kidnapper (Vincent) and his victim (Gaëlle).  Videau is evidently a believer in the Stockholm Syndrome, a well-documented phenomenon in which the victim of a kidnapping develops an empathic bond with his or her abductor (possibly as an instinctive survival strategy).  Perhaps the most unsettling thing about the film is that there is never any sense of a mutual antagonism between the main protagonists - their relationship is nearer to that of a father and daughter, rather than that of a tormentor and his victim.  There is plenty of brutality in the relationship, but there is also tenderness and a shared understanding, and we soon realise that the real victim is not Gaëlle but the kidnapper himself.  Vincent can never escape from his personal nightmare, even when he has released his prisoner (we should note that his real-life counterpart, Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide almost immediately after his victim's escape).

What makes À moi seule such a particularly compelling film is the authenticity which the two lead actors bring to it, assisted by Videau's remarkably restrained yet highly astute screenwriting.  Gaëlle is portrayed with an almost ethereal sense of detachment by Agathe Bonitzer (the daughter of screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer and filmmaker Sophie Fillières).  We never really get to understand Gaëlle; her hold over her emotions is as strong and unflinching as her kidnapper's hold over her. Yet, somehow, we instinctively know what it is like to be in her predicament.  When Gaëlle is forced to look back on her period of captivity after her release, we share her sense of estrangement from the world she must now live in.  It is almost as if she has been ripped from her true family and casually thrown into a foster home.  No one can imagine what she has been through, no one can dare to comprehend the everlasting bond she has formed with her captor.  She might as well be on a different planet.

Reda Kateb is equally convincing as the strangely likeable kidnapper Vincent.  Like Gaëlle, Vincent has difficulty in showing his true feelings and developing a rapport with others.  The ease with which Vincent can switch from thoughtless violence to paternal gentleness suggests he is suffering from a severe personality disorder.  Perhaps we should pity him more than Gaëlle?  He has a far greater monster to deal with, the hydra that lives in his head.  Not long after his screen debut in the popular French television series Spiral and Jacques Audiard's Un prophète (2009), Kateb has already proved himself to be a very capable young actor, and judging by his nuanced performance in Videau's film we can expect to see much more of him in the years to come.

It is thanks largely to Bonitzer and Kateb's subtle portrayals of the prisoner and her jailer that the inversion of the two main roles is so effectively handled.  Rather than simply have us regard the unfortunate prisoner as a victim, someone whose childhood has been stolen from her by a wicked and thoughtless man, it instead portrays her as an indomitable résistant, someone who is strengthened by her experiences, not destroyed by them.  In the end, it is not Gaëlle we pity - she clearly has the guts and resourcefulness to end up as President of France; rather, our sympathies are with Vincent, the solitary, possibly deranged wretch who is condemned to dwell in a far darker and emptier world than the one his captive ever knew.  It would be so easy to write Vincent off as a sick, evil monster, but Videau compels us to reserve judgment and see that the greater evils lie elsewhere, in a society that derives cheap sensationalist thrills from the traumatic experiences of people like Gaëlle.  À moi seule transcends the abject bleakness of its subject matter and emerges as a profound study in human nature at its most uncomfortable and bewildering.

Film Synopsis

For eight years, Gaëlle has been held captive by Vincent.  During this time, she has seen no one else - he was her entire world.  Now she is free, but in a world that feels alien to her.  She has no connection with anyone, not even her family.  They are all strangers to her.  It is as if Gaëlle has been re-born into a world where no one understands her, where no one can make contact with her.  And yet, in spite of everything she has been through, she cannot bring herself to hate the man who has taken so much away from her.  Her relationship with Vincent is the only part of her life that feels real...