Baptême (1989)
Directed by René Féret

Film Review

After winning the Prix Jean-Vigo in 1975 for his first feature Histoire de Paul (1975), director René Féret has since ploughed a modest furrow for himself with his intimate, low-key dramas that mostly involve ordinary people making the most of the lives they are given. In common with his earlier, well-regarded film La Communion solennelle (1977), Baptême offers an authentic slice of life in a typical French family, with the director tackling his subject with evident affection and tenderness. The film is a shameless celebration of family life, of the kind that has been virtually absent from our screens since the 1960s and for which we readily forgive it its occasional bursts of sentimentality. Féret's direct and understated approach gives the film an immediacy that compels us to identify with all of the characters that are presented to us. Féret would later win praise for his grander films such as his revealing biopic Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart (2010), but Baptême is the kind of film where he is at his best, showing us ordinary folk coping with the everyday dramas that come their way in a setting so familiar that we almost feel as if we are part of the family.

Film Synopsis

A mining town in northern France, 1935.  Aline, a young waitress in a café, falls in love with one of her customers, Pierre, and persuades her reluctant parents to let him marry her.  It is the beginning of a life-long romance which, despite some ups and downs, endures right up until Pierre's death thirty years later.  Just before the war in 1939, Aline and Pierre lose their first child, Rémi, in a tragic accident.  After the war, they rebuild their lives and have two further sons, François and Rémi, the latter named in memory of the lost first born.  Neither privileged nor well-educated, Pierre manages to provide his family with financial security by working hard and sacrificing all he has to those he loves.