2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

paul2001sw-1 Depression is a terrible thing. The opening scene of 'My Children' tells us that an awful thing has happened, and the rest of the movie provides the background to the tragedy. It's a slow-paced film, and for much of its length, it feels too slow-paced for its own plot: it's not easy to see how the status quo is going to descend into tragedy within the allotted time. In the event, the end is sudden and not directly provoked: the cause is rather internal, the final snapping of its protagonist amid inner despair. Nonetheless, depression can be induced by real-world causes, and the film is actually, aside from its dramatic conclusion, an intriguing study of a subtly abusive relationship between an elderly doctor who in effect adopted a Moroccan family. In return for his generosity, he sought control, more control than any one person should have over the lives of others. Director Joachim Lafosse strangely shoots many scenes through out-of-focus doorways, a stylistic tic that I didn't quite understand; but this a powerful study nonetheless, a disturbing portrait of a family life that is superficially idyllic, but somehow not right nonetheless

guy-bellinger The film is directly inspired by the case of Geneviève Lhermitte, a Belgian woman who, in 2008, brutally murdered her five children.What in the world drove this hitherto model mother to such a barbarous act... is the anguished question asked by writer-director Joachim Lafosse (also Belgian) in this intense if somewhat restrained drama. A question all the harder to answer when the deplorable "heroine" of this family tragedy was at a loss, as she put it, "to understand what has happened, for I still haven't understood. I acted the opposite way to what I thought."Lafosse cannot provide THE answer, it goes without saying. How could he since the real-life murderess in person proved unable to understand herself? But he tries hard to come as close to the truth as possible. In any case, he refuses to condemn her. Instead, he describes thoroughly all the stages of the way of the cross she undergoes before committing her irreversible act.Co-written with Matthieu Raynaert and Jacques Audiard's favorite screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, "A perdre la raison" indeed follows the various developments of the affair very realistically even if the names and a few details have been changed (after all this is a fiction work, not a documentary) : Geneviève has become Murielle and her husband is named Mounir instead of Bouchaib. Plus, the couple in the fiction has four children whereas they had five in the real situation. As for their evil genius, he is not Dr. Michel Schaar any longer, but Dr. André Pinget. Basically however, all the seeds of the tragedy sown in real life are present in the fiction and in it too the wild wind cannot but be reaped: once established the toxic relationships between Murielle (who craves the intimacy of a love nest), Mounir (whose gratefulness to his foster father lets him invade it) and André (who gives the couple everything but controls their lives from A to Z), the infernal machine is activated and – a constant in classic tragedy – nothing can stop it. Such an approach will naturally be effective only if it rests on strong acting performances, which is fortunately the case here. Emilie Dequenne ("Rosetta", "La fille du RER") is deeply moving as Murielle, this Mother Courage - Mater Dolorosa turned Medea, while Tahar Rahim ("Un prophète", "Grand Central") translates to perfection Mounir's affectionate but weak temperament. As for Niels Arestrup ("Un prophète", "Diplomatie"), the formidable actor proves more menacing and terrifying than ever in the role of the couple's Nemesis hiding beneath a friendly exterior.Quite a gripping work, "A perdre la raison" is a film experience you will find hard to forget. Both a cold analysis of a tragic news event and the sympathetic portrait of a desperate woman, it is one of the most impressive movies shown in 2012.

Sindre Kaspersen Belgian screenwriter and director Joachim Lafosse's fifth feature film which he co-wrote with French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain and Belgian screenwriter Matthieu Reynaert, is based on a real-life incident that took place in Brussels in 2007 where a 42-year-old woman killed her five children. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 65th Cannes International Film Festival in 2012, was shot on location in Morocco and Belgium and is a France-Belgium-Luxembourg-Switzerland co-production which was produced by producers Jacques-Henri Bronckart and Olivier Bronckart. It tells the story about Mounir and Murielle, a couple in their late twenties who lives in Brussels, Belgium. Murielle is a Belgian elementary school teacher and Mounir, a Moroccan and former youth worker without a permanent residence certificate. After deciding to get married, Mounir shares the great news with his close friend André Pinget, a wealthy doctor who has been like a father to him through most of his childhood and helped him and his family in many ways. André gives Mounir a full-time job at his practice, let's him and Murielle live with him in his apartment and Murielle and Mounir is happily married, but as time goes by André's ways of making himself indispensable and his insisting involvement in their lives begins to stagnate their relationship.Precisely and commandingly directed by Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse, this somewhat biographical and fictional story which is narrated mostly from the female protagonist's viewpoint, draws an intimate and nuanced portrayal of a Belgian teacher's saint like suffering after marrying, becoming a mother and being second-rated by a husband who is more committed to honoring the wishes of his generous and demanding father figure. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine production design by production designer Anna Falguères, cinematography by Belgian cinematographer Jean-François Hensgens and realism, this narrative-driven and dialog-driven psychological drama triangle depicts an in a sense provocatively heartrending, due to it's non-judgmental and empathic portrait of the main character, study of character and contains an efficient classical score which emphasizes the film's tragic undertones.This finely paced character piece about emigration, conflicting human relations, motherhood, mental exhaustion and paper marriage which is set in Brussels, Belgium during a summer in the early 21st century and which has been chosen as Belgium's submission to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, abrupt editing by film editor Sophie Vercruysse, substantial character development, the poignant and impressive acting performances by Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne who comes close to her unforgettable acting performance in the Dardenne brothers' "Rosetta" (1999) and the fine acting performances by French actors Niels Arestrup, Tahar Rahim and Belgian actress Stéphane Bissot. A concentrated and ambivalent love-story which gained, among other awards, the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress Émilie Dequenne at the 65th Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

lasttimeisaw A KVIFF screening, from French director Joachim Lafosse, before now the film has won a BEST ACTRESS award (for Émilie Dequenne) in UN CERTAIN REGARD competition in this year's Cannes. It is an unsettling drama concerns a tragedy which would be quite a mind-shocker. The film begins with the wife lying in the hospital bed (clearly after some severe accident) and mumbling that her children should be buried in Morocco, so during the subsequent truth-revealing narrative, viewers are practically preparing ourselves to undertake a tremendous calamity (my speculation is a car accident), but the film will deliver a much stronger and crueler blow, the actual long-takes of the massacre are done in an eerily tranquil restraint (considerably withdrawn from the actual execution). The foci are on the bizarre triangular relationship among three people, Mounir, a young Moroccan man and his French wife Murielle, live with elderly André a rich French doctor who had a paper marriage arrangement with Mounir's mother, so he could bring Mounir with him, and provide a job for him to work in his private clinic. So technically Mounir-André's quasi father- son bond has a deeper root (than Murielle, the clear intruder could imagine) although they are no blood linkage. Later, when their children consequently arriving in this world, step-by-step Murielle finds herself suffocated by the temporal life (possibly postpartum depression), and eagerly sways Mounir to go back to Morocco with their family, to start their life anew. But thing is slipping to an abyss when André cannot risk losing them and Mounir relies too much on him (both economically and psychologically) as well. Until the confrontation between Murielle and André finally occurs, the tragedy is inescapable.A heavy string score is predestined to the solemn tenor, the film is a trifle long-haul (a 111 minute running time) and the transitions of the characters' mental activities are either too abrupt or too hackneyed, but Émilie Dequenne for sure has been splendidly extraordinary in her devastating role, her self-destroy interpretation is powerful enough to propel the story against its ill-fated destiny. The A PROPHET (2009, a 9/10) pair, Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup are sharing their leading status as the other two angles of the triangle hazard, and overtly the latter has a meatier presence. There is a chafed undertone against the main plot, which I dare not to sidestep, the legality of paper marriage may not be the crux behind the tragedy, but nevertheless plays an influential part of the contemporary immigrant quandary.