Les petites vacances (2006) User Reviews

Holes In The Hols

[writers_reign · 7/10 · 24 October 2006]

This is Olivier Peyon's first feature length film so it would be churlish to be too critical yet there are a couple of points that distract the viewer from the story and wonder Why or How. For example the film opens with the camera tracking very closely a large truck carrying lumber; the first thought is that the truck is there to block our view of the surroundings and so disorient us but not so. After thirty seconds or so we lose the truck and Cut to a provincial train station where two adults and two children wait for a train. Bernadette Dalfont, our protagonist, is standing there with her daughter and the daughter's two children, Marine, around twelve or thirteen and Tomas, around ten. Dalfont is about to deliver them by train to their father, Philippe, who is either divorced or separated from his wife. Dalfont, in jeans and jumper, boards the train with the kids but at the other end instead of Philippe, a young woman turns up and says she is his girlfriend and he has been delayed. She says the kids can watch TV in her office and extends the offer to Dalfont who declines saying she must take the next train back in half an hour. Exit one girlfriend and two kids leaving Dalfont alone on station. Cut: Now Dalfont is at the wheel of a car and the kids are climbing in as the girlfriend looks on telling Dalfont to be careful with Philippe's car. Question: WHY did Dalfont agree immediately to turn over her grandchildren to a complete stranger who could have been disturbed and dangerous and HOW did Dalfont know where the girlfriend's office was and further HOW did she persuade the girlfriend to hand them over PLUS her boyfriend's car. A little later they make a ferry crossing and on the other side the children ask why they have left their father's car behind to which Dalfont replies that the ferry was unable to accommodate it. Cut: Now they are in another car. WHERE did they get it. Who knows. They spend several days travelling and staying in good class hotels. WHERE did the money come from. In one hotel Dalfont meets a man around her own age, Claude Brasseur and dances with him in an evening gown. The director was present at the screening and when I put these points to him he was gracious enough to concede that they might impair concentration and said he had cut several scenes which would have answered these points. If we forget these minor irritations we are left with a fairly decent study of a woman in middle age suddenly acting irrationally - she does, in fact, virtually kidnap her grandchildren - who is beautifully realized by the veteran Dalfont. The 'interlude' with Claude Brasseur is worth the price of admission alone and all in all this is a fine debut.

A very good , very accomplished film!

[joezabel · 10/10 · 22 March 2007]

This one reminds me a little of Lauren Cantet's Time Out. Like that film, it features a main character who has cast themselves adrift from the rules of society. We are absorbed in a suspenseful vigil, awaiting the catastrophe their wandering souls are likely to encounter.

The premise of Stolen Holidays is simple, credible, and compelling: a doting grandmother decides to take her grandchildren on an extended holiday without permission or consent from their parents. As their illicit holiday extends further and further, the grandmother must evade the increasingly urgent efforts of the parents to get their children back.

Bernadette Lafont is excellent as the enigmatic grandmother. Her reasons for the escapade are never made entirely clear, but we sense the vacuum left in her life from retiring as a schoolteacher, and we readily understand her hunger for more exciting prospects.

Also excellent is Adele Csech as the older granddaughter Marine. She subtly portrays the young woman's alternate delight and annoyance at her grandmother's guardianship, and then her slowly dawning realization that something is seriously wrong.

The photography in this movie is excellent, treating us to views of some gorgeous vacation spots. But it is also extremely adept at implying the darker themes of the story, beginning with the evocative shots of the characters driving behind a lumber-carrying truck. One particularly astonishing shot reveals the grandmother sitting on the balcony at night, while the children play indoors behind closed blinds. The children press against the blinds and call to the grandmother, their silhouettes looking strange and ghostly.

This film explores the idea of how the elderly feed upon the exuberance of the young, hoping to enliven their own lives. A very fine, universal, beautiful film!