Haut les coeurs!
France,
1999, 110 min
Shown in 2000
CREDITS
- dir
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Sólveig Anspach
- prod
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Patrick Sobelman
- scr
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Sólveig Anspach, Pierre-Erwan Guillaume
- cam
-
Isabelle Razavet
- editor
-
Anne Riegel
- cast
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Karin Viard, Laurent Lucas
- source
-
Mercure Distribution, 27, rue de la Butte aux Cailles, 75013 Paris, France. FAX: 33-1-45-65-07-47. EMAIL: infos@mercure-distribution.fr
-
COMMENTS
Skyy Prize contender.
OTHER
Emma is four months pregnant with her first child when she receives the devastating news that she has advanced breast cancer. Her surgeon advises her to abort the baby to undergo treatments that will put the fetus at risk. She and her boyfriend decide to get a second opinion, and when cancer specialists tell Emma she can undergo chemotherapy and still keep the baby, she overcomes her initial despair and embarks on a battle to save her own life and the life growing inside her. Though the premise reeks of pathos, Sólveig Anspach’s narrative film debut is not a weepy melodrama. Instead, this wrenching story is told with restraint and a curious detachment. Drawing on her roots in documentary filmmaking, Anspach avoids the twists and turns of plot development and strips the story down to the bone of reality as Emma goes through the daily routine of fighting for her life. The rising French star Karin Viard won a César (France’s Oscar) for her powerfully subtle performance as Emma, which matches the restrained intensity of Anspach's directorial style. There’s no hair pulling here, just a beautiful face that communicates every possible emotion with intelligence and dignity.
—Beverly Berning
FACTOID #27
A surrealist stop-motion animator, the Czech Jan Svankmajer, was the first recipient of the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 1997. The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker who works outside of feature-length narrative filmmaking.
