SET ME FREE (Emporte-moi)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Merchant Ivory Films/ Artistic License Films Director: Lea Pool Writer: Lea Pool, Nancy Huston, Monique H. Messier Cast: Karine Vanasse, Pascale Bussieres, Charlotte Christeler, Nancy Huston, Miki Manojlovic, Monique Mercure, Alexandre Merineau
Chosen by the Toronto Film Critics' organization as Canada's best 1999 film and by the Canada Film Board as its official foreign-language Oscar entry (beating out "Felicia's Journey"), "Set Me Free" is a coming of age story dealing with a teen age girl from Quebec who has a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. (This may explain the movie's popularity at the 1999 Jerusalem Film Festival.) Here is no run-of-the-mill sample of that popular genre and is light-years removed from hackneyed American teen comedies like last year's obtuse and witless "Jawbreaker." Nor is it of interest only to the people who are contemporaries of the principal character. What makes "Set Me Free" an important achievement is its universality. Unlike a slick, but decent, Hollywood coming-of-age drama like "Girl, Interrupted" which brought in a targeted audience of Winona Ryder's 20- something fans, "Set Me Free" should enchant men and women alike, teens and eighty-somethings as well. While we don't all come from unhappy families like the 13-year-old girl who wants to be set free to live her own life, most of us have had experiences that parallel hers.
Like the young Hanna (Karine Vanasse), we've endured adolescent conflicts: we've loved our parents; we've hated them. We've enjoyed school; we've dreaded going. We tailored ourselves like characters in movies; we changed our minds when we saw the ill fit. We were attracted to the opposite sex; we found greater comfort and warmth within our own. High one day; in the dumps the next. We identified strongly with our religion; we felt rootless and alienated from all beliefs. We've felt our parents' love; we've wondered whether they knew how to express it. We wanted to move out and live with our more understanding grandparents; we got homesick and moved back with those who gave birth to us.
That's a lot of stuff for adolescents to go through. How we all survived is testament to our grit. Lea Pool, who directed "Set Me Free," jogs our memories. Yes, she appears to say, there's no time like youth. No, she surfaces to say, puberty is so darn miserable that we don't ever want to repeat those years. But why lecture or write a book on adolescent psychology when you can use the prodigious talents of Karine Vanasse in the role of Hanna, the 13-year-old Quebecois whose Jewish father, (Mike Manojlovic) and Catholic mother (Pascale Bussieres) keep her wondering "who am I?" and who identifies with her compassionate teacher (Nancy Huston) and with Anna Karine, the star of Jean-Luc Godard's 1962 movie "My Life to Live."
As the film opens on Hanna enjoying a rustic season with her grandparents, we haven't a clue to the girl's misery. She has a broad, contagious smile and loves to horse around with her Down's Syndrome-affected brother. Yet like many her age in the repressive early 1960s, she has no idea what's happening when she experiences her first period. Moving back to Montreal with her folks and a slightly older brother, Paul (Alexandre Merineau), she runs through a stage of experimentation with assorted life styles, mimicking the activities of the actress playing Nana in the Godard film she has already seen four times and identifying strongly with her teacher, who bears a strong resemblance to that actress who became Jean-Luc Godard's wife.
Hanna lives in Montreal with her brother Paul, her self- designated poet father who cannot or will not hold a job, and her depressed and exhausted mother who must come home from a grueling job as fashion designer to type her husband's countless unpublished manuscripts. The rent is unpaid. Her dad loves his wife and children but cannot show the love in a healthy manner. As a Jew from Poland who survived the Holocaust, he insists that Hanna pay more attention to her roots and is quick to slap her when she shows signs of rebellion. Hanna finds comfort in another lonely girl, Laura (Charlotte Christeler), whose sensuality appeals to her, and most of all in her sympathetic teacher. She fears, justifiably, that her mother will attempt suicide and in fact feels self-destructive herself. Her financial problems lead her to pawn whatever she can get her hands on and to join her brother in shoplifting. In one instance she is groped in the back room by a baker, and in another she is propositioned while walking down a street patronized by hookers. Hanna has a way to go before she can emerge from a snarl of disorienting experiences and to find herself. We root for her.
When Hanna is lent a movie camera for the summer by her teacher, we see that director Pool wants us not only to feel a kinship with the likable teen but is simultaneously paying homage to the cinema, especially to the New Wave movement championed by Jean Luc-Godard, with its promotion of a more personal style of filmmaking, independent of slick, studio-based practices. "Set Me Free" is just such a film, one which virtually concedes the director's autobiographical underpinnings. Free of easy resolutions, this sincere, heartfelt movie leaves us to ponder Hanna's future, given the conflicted circumstances of her impressionable years.
Not Rated. Running Time: 94 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews