LE HERISSON (The HEDGEHOG) (France)
The Story:
Paloma (Garance Le Guillermica) precocious 11-years-old girl from a Parisian bourgeois family that she despises, and an intellectual concierge – Renée Michel – who hides books in a backroom and soothes loneliness by eating tons of chocolate. Paloma is a highly introspective girl who wittily analyses the vanity and mediocrity of the world she comes from, and is strongly determined not to be part of it. Paloma continuously sneaks away and hides in places where she cannot be found.
She casts an outsider look on her world by delivering ultra-critical existentialist observation on her family that, in turn, largely ignore her. That makes her a privileged observer of the vices and weaknesses of her family members who she films with her father's old Hi-8 in order to leave a documented legacy of the reasons why she will commit suicide on her 12th birthday. On the other side, Renée (Josiane Balasko), the concierge of the building where Paloma lives with her family – is a surly widow who makes any effort to match the stereotype of an ordinary concierge while she spends night reading novels in the backroom of her apartment whose door is closed throughout the day. Renée is aware that none of the snobbish tenants of the block would want an eccentric concierge, and that is why she prefers to go unnoticed. What both Paloma and Renée have in common is that they do not want glances to be casted on themselves. In fact, they both perceive that they can keep their space of liberty only by going unseen.
When Mr Kakoru Ozu (Togo Igawa), a sophisticated Japanese widower – moves in one of the apartments following the death of a former tenant, he detects Renée's cultured side and Paloma's wit at once. Through Mr Ozu's mediation, soon Paloma starts to perceive Renée as a potential ally and confidant. Slowly, Renée lets Paloma into her apartment and consents to be filmed for Paloma's documentary. At the same time, Renée starts a delicate love affair with Mr Ozu that literally transforms her. That is how we found out that the hedgehog of the title is Renée herself: “spiky on the outside, but elegant on the inside” as Paloma says to Mr Ozu. That very elegance will be determinant for Paloma's future decisions as her 12th birthday approaches.
Starring:
Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa, Anne Brochet, Ariane Ascaride
Directed By:
Mona Achache
Release:
2010
Watch the Trailer:
