Film Review
It's quite a switch from hard-edged, ultra-violent post-noir thriller
to whimsical children's fairytale, but director Olivier Dahan appears
not to have been daunted by this challenge, although his adaptation of
Charles Perrault's
Tom Thumb
is obviously cut from the same gore-saturated cloth as Dahan's previous
Déjà mort (1998),
minus some of that film's bloodier excesses. Dahan's main
strength as a director is his extremely well-developed visual
imagination, which serves him in good stead in this, his most
flamboyant film to date.
Le
Petit poucet is far from being a masterpiece - at times it looks
like something Tim Burton may have knocked out in a deranged drunken
stupor - but it is a distinctive, visually striking piece of film art
that is just about held together by its own eccentric poetry.
Dahan may be a titan on the design front but he is far less successful
as a director of actors, and it is this that makes
Le Petit poucet painful viewing for
anyone expecting a serious piece of drama with convincing characters
and a coherent narrative. Despite the liberal smattering of high
calibre actors in supporting roles (Romane Bohringer, Élodie
Bouchez, Catherine Deneuve and Romain Duris all put in a brief
appearance), the performances are generally below par (occasionally
terrible) and cause you to wish that Dahan had gone the whole hog and
opted for animation rather than live action. It is also unclear
who the film's target audience is supposed to be. The naivety of
the script and direction would suggest that the film is aimed at a
pre-school child audience, but most responsible parents would think
twice about subjecting their impressionable toddlers to the film's grim
excursions into adult violence. And this is the central,
irredeemable flaw of
Le Petit poucet
- it is too self-consciously childish to appeal to adults, and yet too
casually 'grown-up' to be suitable entertainment for young children.
© James Travers 2014
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Next Olivier Dahan film:
La Vie promise (2002)
Film Synopsis
Once upon a time, in a far off land, there was a little boy named Tom
Thumb. He lived on a farm with his parents and many brothers, all
of whom despised him because he was so small and puny.
Times were hard and, during a long war, the farm was raided by
soldiers, who took all they could find, leaving Tom's family even more
poor and desolate than before. Realising that they all faced
starvation, Tom's parents took their children into the forest one day,
and abandoned them there. The children not only had marauding
wolves to be afraid of, but also the warriors of a fearsome soldier
with an iron leg. But the greatest of all their fears was the
child-eating Ogre...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.