L'Enfant d'en haut (2012)
Directed by Ursula Meier

Film Review

Ursula Meier's eagerly awaited follow up to her weirdly idiosyncratic debut feature Home (2008) is another cinematic oddity offering a surprisingly effective mix of social realism, family drama and modern fable.  L'Enfant d'en haut (a.k.a. Sister) may lack the zany personal touch of Meier's incomparable first film but it is just as well-crafted, nuanced and engaging, a worthy recipient of the Silver Bear Special Prize at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival.  Not only is the film a poignant character piece, centred on a young boy whose intense craving for affection and status leads him into a life of crime, it is also a thoughtful commentary on the vast economic gulf that splits our society today and on the way that money can poison relationships.

After his memorable screen debut in Home and subsequent portrayal of Serge Gainsbourg as a child in Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (2010), Kacey Mottet Klein takes centre stage in Meier's latest film and leaves us in no doubt that he is a star in the making.  Klein's arresting portrayal of the complex 12-year-old Simon is striking in its depth and naturalism.  We can easily latch onto the fragility, the desperate need for love, that the youngster struggles to conceal beneath a touchingly forced pretence of adult bravado.  This is most apparent in a moving scene in which the boy tries and fails to wheedle his way into the affection of a friendly English tourist (played by Gillian Anderson, of X-Files fame).  Whilst we cannot help but engage with Simon, we struggle to find anything to like in his sister, portrayed just as convincingly by Léa Seydoux.  Louise has little to redeem her - she is a wild young woman who has almost given up and ends up being completely dependent on her brother.  (We do not find out what became of their parents until late in the film.)  The siblings' ambiguous relationship takes a darker turn when Simon realises how much power he has over his sister and sees that, contrary to the old song, money can buy you love.  What then ensues is as cruel a psychodrama as you can imagine.

The film's two locations provide a stark visual metaphor for the unbridgeable gulf that exists between the two strata of society, the haves and the have nots.  The first half of the film is set mainly in the pristine snowy mountains overlooking a poor Swiss town.  Here, wealthy tourists amuse themselves in what looks like a fairytale setting, frolicking in the sun and the snow, without a care in the world.  They are like the aristocrats of pre-revolutionary France, blissfully unaware of the misery and squalor that lies unseen at their feet.  How we delight in the ease with which little Simon sneaks into their playground like a Dickensian urchin and helps himself to their designer goggles and skis.  The contrast with the world that Simon comes from could hardly be greater - a concrete wasteland of car parks and tower blocks, filling the valley at the foot of the mountains like so much human detritus.  This is the depressing world we are plunged into after our jaunt in the sunny uplands, a place where hope is as scarce as money, and a skiing holiday is a concept that is beyond the comprehension of most people who live here.

It is hardly an original metaphor - the rich in their lofty haven, the poor in their stinking gutter - but it provides an effective framework on which Ursula Meier can develop her probing character study about two very different souls - the boy who yearns desperately for love and the older sister who becomes completely dependent on him.  Agnès Godard's beautiful near-documentary photography not only stresses the physical disconnection between the two contrasting locations, it also exposes the profound emotional disconnection between Simon and his sister, who at times appear as distant from one another as the fancy ski resort and the grim housing estate on which they live.  L'Enfant d'en haut may not be as quirky as Home, and its ending certainly isn't as satisfying, but it is nonetheless a mature and intensely humane piece of filmmaking.  It is with eager anticipation that we look forward to Ursula Meier's next film.

Film Synopsis

One winter, Simon, an enterprising 12 year old, makes good use of the cable car that connects the industrial town where he lives with his sister Louise and the opulent ski resort that overlooks it.  From the latter he steals skiing equipment from wealthy tourists which he then sells, at a profit, in his town.  Having lost her job, Louise finds that she is becoming increasingly dependent on her little brother...