Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

dbdumonteil It's evident and it deserves to be mentioned. When Jacques Doillon films children (un Sac De Billes, 1975) or teenagers (la Drôlesse, 1979, Le Petit Criminel, 1990), it's what he does best and especially when he pores over the dark sides of childhood and adolescence like rejection, misunderstanding, lack of love or the death of dear close relatives. "Ponette" revolves around the latest of these things. This cute 4 year old little girl lost her mother (Marie Trintignant,a sinister omen for her tragic fate some years later) and is persuaded she will see her again. So, she embarks on a long waiting which makes her father (Xavier Beauvois) and the grown-ups incensed. Her aunt (Claire Nebout) tries to provide her solace with the help of religious creeds but does she really believe in them? At the start of a new school year, she is sent at boarding school with her cousins and in a small church, asks God to talk to her mother. Then, in a graveyard in front of her mother's grave, a miracle happens.The first thing that springs to mind after the viewing is that you would like to hail Doillon for the remarkable work he has provided with the children. He said that he listened many conversations between children for months before rewriting them in dialogs and that's the main reason why his film has a larger than life vibe. Sometimes, you even wonder if you don't watch a documentary. Working with children on a film set is very hard to do but it's evident here that Doillon did everything possible to prepare his very young actors mentally to his cinematographic demands. So, little Victoire Thivisol and her partners really live their texts and it's the world perceived with children's eyes that is one of the real motors of the film.In another extent, Doillon walks away with the honors of a tricky topic: how can the life of a beloved human being can be perceived by her children? The Scottish Peter Mullan will bring his own answer in his moody "Orphans" (1997) and here, Ponette thinks she will see her mother again because she is seduced by the religious tenets her aunt tells to her. And when her mother appears beside her in the graveyard, it's a real foray into the fantastic without the unpleasant impression of a break in tone because the little girl is the only one to experiment this. During their short moment together her mother tells her: "I won't be able to stay with you but before I definitely leave, promise me one thing: don't complain, savor life as much as you can". We aren't very far from one of the key lines in John Frankenheimer's "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962): "the first duty of life is to live" and it's the message Doillon left in his work. Ponette is bound to have understood the lesson and to follow this piece of advice. Perhaps you will keep it in your heart too after the viewing.So, from a murky starting point, Doillon manages to create a piece of work with a startling realism and an uplifting message. If you're sensitive to these features, "Ponette" will leave you elated. Highly recommended and I would advise you to watch it several times because very young children are often difficult to decipher in their lines. So, be patient and you will be rewarded.

elmartino-1 Although I found this to be one of the most affecting films that I have seen, I was, nevertheless, astounded at the real depth of feeling shown by the young children in this film.Victoire Thivisol carries absolute sincerity in her portrayal of the recently bereaved young girl, with a realism beyond belief when one considers her tender age. The other children also played their parts with a conviction that would be considered commendable in mature actors with many more years of experience to draw on.As has been noted elsewhere, the graveside apparition of Marie Trintignant as Ponette's mother does seem a fanciful afterthought to give the story a kind of closure, but it is hard to see how the film could have been brought to a conclusion without a similar contrivance.Not a film for the overly sentimental, and I include myself. After watching the film, I bought the DVD, but I,m still waiting the right time to rewatch it.

tenpenny Ponette is a movie you will replay in your mind for a long time. I keep remembering bits and pieces of it. The adults in the movie -- we'll leave aside Ponette's father, for now -- all sincerely try to answer Ponette's questions about death, and the after-life, to the best of their abilities, and it is hard to fault what they tell Ponette. It sounds reasonable, theologically. And yet, it is ultimately unsatisfying because, in the adults, an emotional disconnect has occurred at some point between what they ~say~ they believe and what they, deep down, ~really~ believe. Or perhaps this disconnect was always there for them -- it's impossible to tell.Ponette has the kind of metaphysical purity and innocence that the nineteenth-century French philosopher Jules Lequyer praised in The Hornbeam Leaf. Such questions! Such observations! No adult would think to say, as Ponette did, when her cousin pointed out that his grandfather didn't come back from the dead, "No one was waiting for him." No adult would think that it mattered whether anyone was waiting. Ponette's cousin may not share Ponette's convictions, but he takes them seriously. When his mother remarks to him that Ponette is "playing" at waiting for her mother to return, he corrects his mother: "No, she's really waiting."Ponette's father, unlike the other adults in the movie, is an atheist. And yet, when Ponette is with him at the end of the movie, describing to him her just-concluded encounter with her mother, he makes no attempt to disillusion her, which is certainly unlike his earlier behavior. Why? Earlier in the movie, in a remarkable scene, we saw the tension between the two of them: his atheism, his attempt to impose it on her, and her unwillingness to accept it. How many four-year-olds could stand up to their fathers like that, and on something so important?At the boarding school that Ponette attends, she meets Ada, who is called "a child of God" by the other kids, apparently because she openly asserts her (Jewish) faith. But surely it is Ponette who is a child of God. It is Ponette, alone among the children, who makes a real attempt to connect with God -- to speak to Him, and even, at times, to berate Him. After what she describes as her "second prayer," Ponette is already light-years ahead of the other children spiritually.One review I read of this movie described Ponette as an "old soul." I agree, but would go beyond that: She has the potential someday to be a great spiritual leader, if her spirituality is not crushed out of her later. To me, this is the great "open question" at the end of the film: What becomes of such a soul? The vagaries of life being what they are, one can imagine that it could go either way for Ponette.Perhaps, in the end, Ponette's father lets it go -- his daughter's fantastic tale of reuniting with her mother -- because something in her eyes, something in her mien, tells him that any further attempt to gainsay his daughter's faith would be futile.----"The truth is a cry: it is the cry of life, which says that it is life and that it wants to live." -- Michel Henry

Benedict_Cumberbatch A 4-year-old French girl, Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) waits for the return of her mother, who has just died at an auto accident.This beautiful and sensitive drama surprised a lot of people when won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival 1996, given to a 5-year-old novice, Victoire Thivisol. She is really magnificent and, controversy aside, the important award recognized the biggest achievement in the film: Victoire reacts with amazing naturalness and outstanding facial expressions to the most intricate scenes. "Ponette" is a film that certainly will be in your memory, mostly because of a too young girl who shows the difference between a little great actress and a gracious child who wrinkles the eyebrows eloquently.