Thursday, September 16, 2010

TOUT EST PARDONNE
(ALL IS FORGIVEN)

Cine Europa 13
Cinema 2, Shang Cineplex




This French film starts in the mid 1990s. Victor, a French writer lives with his Austrian wife Annette and their daughter Pamela in Vienna. But all is not well in the marriage as Victor is primarily a bum who spends his days and nights out to escape the doldrums. Two years later back in Paris much to his wife's chagrin Victor continues his fancy free days and has turned into a drug addict.

Annette who is fed up with his bad habits leaves him and disappears with Pamela. Eleven years later, Pamela is now seventeen years old and lives in Paris with her mother and her new family. One day she learns through her aunt that Victor is still in Paris so she decides to see him once again.

The film moves at a painstakingly slow pace with characters who are hardly vibrant nor endearing to watch. The dysfunctional family is briefly explored but never given much depth. Most of the time, you feel like slapping Victor out of his stupor and give him a tough tongue lashing for wasting his life away. Other than that, nothing much happens.
Even after a span of 11 years, the characters hardly age at all so it wasn't credible at all.

To add insult to injury, the film abruptly ends mid scene and the end credits suddenly scroll by with the audience not getting any closure from the bland reunion between an estranged father and his teenage daughter.

Honestly, I didn't really find myself invested in any of the characters so perhaps it was for the best that it got cut off without much warning because at the point, I frankly couldn't really care less how it ends!

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