Le Hérisson (France, 2009)

Data:
Ocena recenzenta: 8/10

Eleven year old Paloma appears to have it made. She lives a life of ease with her wealthy parents and elder sister in a fancy Parisien apartment block. However, despite all the external trappings of comfort, Paloma is a misfit. She's an intellectual in a bourgeois world. In typical French-intellectual cum precocious eleven year-old fashion, she has decided she has no future in this world and is preparing her suicide by hoarding her mother's pills.

Madame Michel is the apartment block's concierge and Le Hérisson (the hedgehog). She starts out almost as a caricature of the down-at-heel caretaker. Widowed, grumpy and frumpy, she spends most of her time in her grungy apartment, where she keeps her large book collection, reads, and eats chocolate. By her own reckoning, she's old and ugly. It's Paloma who nicknames her le hérisson, because of her prickly exterior.

Neither Paloma, nor Madame M. are really having a great time of it until along comes a stranger, in the form of the intellectual Mr. Ozu. As his name suggests, Mr Ozu is Japanese. A widower, he dresses immaculately, has impeccable manners, knows how to cook, and likes to read Tolstoy. In fact, Mr Ozu has read so many books, he has learned not to judge a book by its cover. He befriends Paloma, and takes an unlikely shine to Madame Michel, who, it turns out, has hidden depths.

The three slowly come to know and appreciate each other. They discover a shared love of words, books and ideas. Both women blossom in response to the unexpected attention, and there is tantalising possibility that Mr Ozu might have found his new sweetheart. And then, just when you're wondering how it's all going to work out in the end. It does.

If the plot seems slightly convoluted and a little predictable, it is. A film like this can only work because we come to know and love the characters, and in Le Hérisson, we do.

It's my favourite genre. Plotless, and character driven. Apparently it's director Mona Achache's first feature film. Respect! Very much worth a watch, if you like this kind of thing.