Mon fils a moi (2006)

Directed by: Martial Fougeron | 79 minutes | drama | Actors: Victor Sévaux, Nathalie Baye, Olivier Gourmet, Marie Kremer, Michèle Moretti, Emmanuelle Riva, Ludmila Ruoso, Thomas Silberstein, Valentine Stach, Nicole Gros, Maxime Monsimier, Julien Oracz, Ludmila Ruoso, Sébastien Guisset, Esteban Challis, Olivier Brunet, Patrick Paul

The first images of the film make it immediately clear that a violent event has taken place. A man looks bewildered at a stretcher being carried into an ambulance. What happened, did someone die or is something completely different going on? This remains a secret until the end of the film. We now know that a drama has taken place, but the developments in the story leave several options open in that regard. The opening images, however, immediately sharpen the attention.

The house from which the stretcher is carried away is in a neat, well-to-do neighborhood. With the help of the voice-over trope that is often used in films today, we look back at the events that precede this drama. A woman’s voice tells us the story, but whose voice does it belong to? The history that is then told initially seems an everyday one. Julien (Victor Sévaux) is the youngest child in a seemingly happy family. Father (Olivier Gourmet) has a nice academic job, mother (Nathalie Baye) looks very well-groomed and takes care of the household, daughter Suzanne (Marie Kremer) is at university and son is still at school and receives piano lessons.

However, this everyday ‘happiness’ is a pretense. The drama that soon emerges is about an all-suffocating mother love. Mother interferes insistently with all the activities of young Julien, who is still too dependent to be able to resist them effectively. His school results are gradually getting worse because of these situations with his mother. Mother lets him take tutoring lessons and Julien is no longer allowed to go to his beloved football club or to his grandmother, with whom he has a very good relationship and where he can secretly meet a girlfriend. His mother is not allowed to know that he already has a girlfriend. The father is more or less conspicuous by his absence. He denies the problems and flees into his work and tennis club. The mother is so dominant in the family that no one can really compete with that. Julien’s sister realizes that Julien is getting worse and tries to get father to talk to mother about this. However, Vader evades his responsibilities and cannot really handle the situation.

Then there are a number of magnificent moments. Sublime scenes in which Julien secretly shaves for the first time before meeting his girlfriend. His sister is here on watch. When mother finds out that Julien has shaved, it comes as a serious shock to her. She realizes that her little boy is outgrowing her.

A very disturbing development can be seen in the way Julien, when he takes a shower in the bathroom, is viciously forced by his mother to show his penis. “You don’t have to feel shame for your own mother, even as a teenager?” The ‘mother’s love’ here is unrelenting and relentless. When his mother finds out that he has a girlfriend, she becomes furious and takes measures in all kinds of ways that almost reflect the form of revenge. She almost constantly presents him with improper choices. The father makes timid attempts to protect his son and it even leads to a small fight with the mother, but in the end he gives in to the pressure. Obviously, this has to end in drama eventually. The son threatens to commit suicide, the police come by, but leave again without any results when the father exonerates the mother of assault.

Dramatic developments soon follow…. The script contains some fantastic and at the same time ironic speeches in which the mother “convinces” Julien that it is better to tell a “little lie” than to hurt someone’s feelings, while at the same time she constantly accuses him of hurting her. does when he doesn’t tell her the truth. There is a constant tension in the film, which way is it going and which discharge is going to come? The characters of both Julien and the mother, but also those of the father and sister are well developed. Precisely because of the stupidity of the father who evades the dominance of the mother, such a situation can be completely derailed.

Nathalie Baye is a star in France and, like in her previous film ‘Le Petit Lieutenant’, plays a great role. How can such a gracious mother have such black traits at the same time? Victor Sévaux also plays his part with devotion, and the somewhat goofy father is portrayed very credibly by Olivier Gourmet. Almost the entire film takes place indoors, in a small setting. The camera work is slow and the image construction extremely careful. This is precisely how the suspense can be built up well. French cinema has not had it easy in recent years. This is another art house film that is very worthwhile for a somewhat smaller segment of the film audience of cinephiles. Drama, suffocating motherly love and strong play make it a gem!