Le Petit Prince a dit

This movie treats with restraint the emotive subject of a little girl diagnosed with a fatal illness - and its effect on her parents. But don't turn the page yet. The film is no horror ride, and watching it is by no means depressing. Violette (Kleiber) is a pudgy, well-adjusted, rather awkward ten-year-old, whose recent blackouts and lack of manual co-ordination arouse concern in her mother Mélanie, a divorced actress (Anémone), who arrives on a visit while the girl's father Adam (Berry) is away on a trip. On his return, Mélanie berates him: how can he, a medical man, be so blind to his daughter's problems? After seeing scans of Violette's brain and overhearing the diagnosis of a tumour, he whisks her away in an effort to forestall the truth. For Violette the trip is just an unexplained holiday, and much of the film's specialness resides in its invitation to reflect anew on the everyday pleasures and pastimes of life, and on the moving father-daughter relationship.