Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Will It Snow for Christmas? (1996)
Director: Sandrine Veysset
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A remarkable debut from writer/director Veysset, this depiction of farm life in the south of France mercilessly explodes the sentimentality and picturesqueness of, say, Claude Berri's films. Autobiographically inspired, it focuses on the hard frugal life of a mother (Reymond) and her seven children. Cinematographer Hélène Louvart keeps the camera close to the family's field of vision, making the viewer a kind of house guest, witness to the intimate rituals of family life - it takes time to become familiar with the children's names and their relationships with their older, emotionally distant stepbrothers, and to realise that their tyrannical father is keeping another 'legitimate' family some miles away. No music guides our attitude, merely 'natural' sound and the evidence of our eyes. The period and time are deliberately vague. Veysset concentrates instead on incident and detail, and nurtures an array of naturalistic performances. Her cinematic maturity and clarity of vision allow her to express passionate feelings with impressive restraint, while her feminism is one of acute understanding, avoiding both censure of the Reymond character, for continuing to love a man who makes her suffer to the point of suicide, and demonisation of the father. A movie of majestic non-judgmental authenticity.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Sandrine Veysset
Producer: Danny Lebigot
Cast: Dominique Reymond, Daniel Duval, Jessica Martinez, Alexandre Roger, Xavier Colonna full cast
Duration: 91 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now