Lost Paradise (2012) User Reviews

"Is it enough just to be in the present to be part of the present?"

[husnukaylan · 6/10 · 16 August 2018]

"Is it enough just to be in the present to be part of the present?"

This is the lesson sixteen year old Lucie will learn throughout the movie, untying herself from her father Hugo who is strictly bound to soil, disciplined man, cast aside away from civilization, decorating his life with natural beauty of French countyside. Hugo is a strong but broken man recently cheated and left by her wife.

Ève Deboise enjoys the comfort of an isolated set, and plot as well, like a drama piece ( probably this was put on theatre before), focusing on characters, getting a real help from mastery of Olivier Rabourdin (Hugo) and Florence Thomassin (Sonia), especially Olivier Rabourdin's acting is way above this movie's level.

Pauline Etienne (Lucie) establishes a warm natural and fluent aura, well contributes the intimacy of the story.

The director and producer being ladies, they put on stage a womanly perspective of existence and I believe ask sharp questions to a certain understanding of life.

A kinfd of movie always worth to see.

Very ambiguous, Rorschah test of a movie

[lazarillo · 13 August 2014]

This is a very strange French film about a father and teenage daughter living by themselves on a farm in a very rural, provincial part of France. There seems to be something incestuous about their relationship, but this is kept vague and ambiguous. They seem happy with the father home-schooling the daughter and an unseen neighbor giving her driving lessons. Conflicts arise when the unfaithful wife/mother of the girl suddenly returns and the father decides to keep her captive in a shed on the corner of his property rather than let her reunite with the daughter. Then another potential conflict arises when the father hires a young Moroccan boy to help him out at the farm. The girl is attracted to the boy and this inspires no small of jealousy on the part of the father. There is also a little girl, but it is not clear whether this is the daughter's child, a neighbor's child she is babysitting, or some kind of metaphoric character that doesn't exist at all(?).

Obviously this movie is deeply ambiguous. I don't mind the tendency of French films to not spell EVERYTHING out like a lot of Hollywood films do, but this film is perhaps too vague and ambiguous to the point you don't really know ANYTHING for sure. The end doesn't really resolve anything and really just raises even more questions. This movie is almost like a Rorschah inkblot which you can interpret pretty much any way you want, but that is not necessarily a great artistic achievement.

The main actress of note here is Pauline Etienne who plays the daughter. She is unusual in that--unlike most young French actresses or young Hollywood actresses--she is a not a stunning beauty, but really a normal-looking girl. Still, that makes her very believable in this role, and she gives a very convincing performance. I just wish it wasn't in such a frustratingly ambiguous movie.