THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
Whether we have seen it or experienced it, we know the scene. A back-to-school classic. A girl, in tears, passes from the arms of her older brother Abel (Günter Duret) to those of her father (Karim Leklou). Clings on like a lifeline. “It’ll be fine, don’t worry” reassure the first. “Come on, go now”, encourages the second, kneeling down to convince his daughter, eye to eye. Here we are. Very close to faces whose grain and pallor are overwhelming; at this height of a child from which we will no longer take off.
From the outset, and for seventy-six minutes, the camera will remain fixed to the neck, cheeks, gaze of Nora (Maya Vanderbeque), making us a silent comrade, clinging to his coattails. Forced to follow her into the closed doors of the school where, every day, feeling abandoned, she looks for her brother, longs for his company without daring to join him. He is with the grown-ups, his so-called friends, who seem to treat him very badly. In reality, Abel is the victim of harassment. It will take time for Nora, 7, to understand. And whether it should intervene (denounce) or not.
Never has school seemed to us so much like a prison, because we are at the level of the child and that changes everything.
Difficult, at this age, to understand what is happening around you. And even more so when everything seems hostile. In class, in the courtyard, in the gymnasium: everywhere the noise, the violence of words, gestures, orders. Forbidden comfort, like this scene where Nora is torn from the school gate, through which she was talking to her father. Never had school seemed to us so much like a prison. For good reason: we are at the level of the child and that changes everything.
Efficient process
The process is so effective that it puts us to the same test as its young heroine. Which, tall as three apples, small compact body, scowling face, gives us to see the world, in its own way. At the same time awakening our childhood memories, and especially the sensations that accompanied them.
The anguish that paralyzes the painting, the loneliness that constricts the throat when others reject us, but also the almost intoxicating joy when, suddenly, they deign to accept us. It is with this sensory experience that the first feature film by Belgian director Laura Wendel (selected in the Un certain regard category, at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival) confronts us. An experience from which one emerges with a shaken mind and a broken body.
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