Forgive me
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Forgive me |
| Original title | Pardonnez-moi |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Maywenn |
| script | Maywenn |
| production |
François Kraus Denis Pineau-Valencienne Maywenn |
| music | Mirwais Ahmadzaï |
| camera | Claire Mathon |
| cut | Laure Gardette |
| occupation | |
| |
Forgive me is a French social drama by Maïwenn from 2006.
action
Violet's relationship with her family and especially with her father Dominique is deeply disturbed. He often hit her for trivialities as a child, while the rest of the family ignored or covered up the incidents. Violette, now an adult, is receiving psychological treatment and is processing her experiences creatively. 300 spectators come to the performance of her one-person play, in which she wants to deal with the relationship with her father, including her sister Billy and her father. After the premiere, both appear in Violet's wardrobe, but her father can hardly say anything to her. He thought the piece was good, but does not develop access to Violette through the role of the passive viewer. She realizes that the piece didn't help her trying to come to terms with what happened in the past.
Violette, who is at the beginning of her pregnancy, decides to make a film about her family for her unborn child over the next few months. Her psychiatrist approves of her, but Violette is unsure whether the woman is too close to her to be able to judge objectively. She therefore stopped the treatment. With her new film camera, she makes first attempts at taking pictures, so she confronts her friend Alex with the question of why she had to abort her child the previous year. Alex refuses to answer. The conversation with the father is sobering, he doesn't care about his future grandchild.
After her play premiere Violette was asked for an interview by journalist Paul. It turns out that wasn't really what Paul was after. Rather, he tells Violette that he once had an affair with her mother Lola and that he is the father of Violette's little sister Nadia. He shows Violette a letter in which Lola announces that she wants to return to Dominique despite her pregnancy. Shortly before a party, Violette confronts her mother on camera with her knowledge and Lola admits that Nadia is not Dominique's daughter. Violette then plays the confession to Nadia and records her reaction. Nadia cries, while Dominique reacts motionless to the opening a little later. A few days later, Violette celebrates her birthday with the family. Like the last few days, she films every incident and demonstratively toasts the ten years in which she was beaten by her father. She doesn't get any reaction to work with. A little later the doorbell rings and Paul is at the door. Violette has invited him and introduces him to his daughter Nadia. Her mother's hatred discharges towards Violette, but Billy soon takes her side after realizing how much Violette suffers from her parents' silence about the outbreaks of violence in the family. Violette accuses her father of never having liked her, but he is unable to show emotions. In the end, Paul and Violette are left alone. In the following years, despite the abrupt start, Paul and Nadia begin to build a father-daughter relationship. Paul in turn confesses to Violette that he fell in love with her, but she rejects him quickly. She is expecting a child from Alex, with whom she has been happy for five years.
Violette continues to try to work through the disturbed relationship with her father. She and her friend buy a large toy doll that she prepares. While her friend is leading the camera, Violette confronts her father with the doll that she dressed like herself as a child. She hits the doll, so that a red paint bag in the hair is destroyed and the doll "bleeds". Another scene simulates how Violette soaked herself in fear as a child when her father yelled at her about nothing. Dominique stays rigid all the time. Only when Violette and her friend have left does he begin to cry.
Violet's pregnancy is advanced and she is considering a wedding to Alex. Alex refuses; In the course of the conversation, he throws up the thesis that she exaggerated or made up her childhood experiences, since none of her sisters talked about her father as she did. She leaves indignantly. A year later, Violette became the mother of a daughter. She is editing her film and is still trying to get her father to repent. He asks her mechanically to apologize, but cannot say that he regrets his behavior. To feel the pain from back then, Violette smashes a bottle on her head. Then she goes to a fair and finally, after a long time, goes to her psychiatrist. This makes it clear to her that Dominique will never ask her for forgiveness. Rather, she should try to forgive him. Since the artistic energy that takes her forward was created from her suffering, she has a clue that allows her to express gratitude to her father. Violette tries to build up a new perspective on the events. She realizes that she can be happy with Alex because he is a loving father to her daughter. In the end, she manages to stand in a group photo with her family - including Paul - and smile.
production
I forgive me for the feature-length directing debut of Maïwenn, who had previously directed a short film with I'm an Actrice . The film was made "based on personal experiences" with her family, which she also processed in other films. There was no classic script for the film, but only a set of scenes with dialogue parts. Parts of the film were converted into “documentary home video aesthetics”, which makes the film look very authentic. The shooting of Forgive Me took place in 2005, where the role of Nadia was originally supposed to play Sara Forestier ; she was replaced by Mélanie Thierry a few days before shooting began .
Forgive me was released on November 22, 2006 in France and was also shown in German cinemas on February 9, 2007. It ran for the first time on German television on October 26, 2011 on arte , where it was shown subtitled and not dubbed.
criticism
The film service found that the film "[tells] a moving family story and [...] is confronted with a heap of broken glass that is created by an unconditional search for truth." For Cinema , forgive me, was a "pseudo documentary that goes to the kidneys" .
Awards
Forgive me was nominated for two Césars in 2007: Maïwenn received one nomination each in the categories of Best Young Actress and Best First Work .
Web links
- Forgive me in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Forgive me on arte.tv.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b See forgive me on arte.tv ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Forgive me. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ See cinema.de
