International Film Festival Rotterdam
Tout est pardonné
In this debut, the former assistant to Olivier Assayas proves to be a reliable storyteller with a great sense of composition and sound. The stability of a young family is strained by the husband's drug addiction. The little daughter loses contact with her father until she sees him again 11 years later.
In her feature début, co-writer and director Mia Hansen-Løve takes advantage of the freedom to link apparently random moments from the life of a disintegrating young family into an intense and naturally acted drama..
The story is easily explained. A young father and would-be poet is on drugs and gives his wife no other choice than to leave him with their little daughter. After 11 years without contact with her father, the daughter finds out that he has been living close by all the time and they meet again. There are a few small and large climaxes in the development, but these form more of an obvious framework around which the everyday vicissitudes acquire depth, than dramatic high points. Together with the often restrained performing style of the actors, this ensures a striking and calm rhythm that gives the film a signature of its own.
The tight framing and occasionally Impressionistic cutting ensure an almost painterly quality, that thanks to the credible scenes does not degenerate into superficial prettiness. The Austrian-French mix of characters and the striking soundtrack including Scottish songs lift All Is Forgiven above a typically Parisian epic and make the film into a refined, profligate analysis of impotence and blood bonds.
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