France’s hit feel-good movie has finally arrived in Cambridge but the question is will it cheer, annoy or do its job in making you really feel good? Part of that may depend on whether you are a deaf or hearing person.
The film has been heavily criticised by many in the deaf community for its portrayal of three members of the eponymous family. The Bélier family is composed of three profoundly deaf members (mother, father and little brother) and a hearing daughter/sister Paula. Her role in her young life (she is meant to be around 15) has been to interpret her family’s words to the outside world via her knowledge of sign language. The family owns a dairy farm in a village somewhere in the Loire valley, far from the bright lights of Paris.
They are an earthy lot in every sense, from being down amongst the herd to up at the crack of dawn making cheeses; the parents are even happy to discuss sex, periods and embarrassing genital itches with the kids. It seems a happy and contented life down on the farm but this is no world of Pagnol but a very 21st century one complete with sassy teenagers and precocious fumblings.
The movie is incredibly watchable, amiable and engaging…
The plot moves apace in a charming, frothy fashion reminiscent of Amélie and as with many successful French films there is a generous scattering of larger-than-life characters. Not least of these is Paula’s mother, played with almost manic energy by French comedy queen Karin Viard. Like all parents of teenies she is adept at embarrassing her kids, especially when a good-looking boy comes round at exactly the moment when Paula begins her periods.
Paula, played by the excellent newcomer Louanne Emera (a finalist in the French version of The Voice) has spent her life giving a voice to her parents and now she has found her own. Her irascible school music teacher (Eric Elmosnino) discovers that she has a wonderful talent for chanson and encourages her to enter a national competition where the prize is music schooling in the capital. Will she leave the farm, her parents and her role as their interpreter? Meanwhile back at the farm, papa (Francois Damien) has decided to take on the local mayor with all the comedic possibilities of hustings conducted by a man who cannot speak.
So we have a multi-layered coming-of-age comedy, almost a rom-com except for the fact that the love interest – Paula’s would-be male duettist – almost fades from the movie half way through. It all motors along at a gallop and there are many genuinely touching moments such as the village school concert in which Paula sings a powerful French ballad, which of course her parents cannot hear.
Director Eric Lartigau infuses his filmic canvas with plenty of familiar rom-com tropes, not least of which are the mad dash to the competition and the usual will she, won’t she moments. The movie is incredibly watchable, amiable and engaging, and there are lots of laugh out loud moments and plenty of tear-inducing scenes. But it’s hard not to be left with a certain discomfort knowing that for some deaf people, the antics of hearing actors waving their arms around in what apparently is pidgin signing is apparently laughable, except they are not laughing.
LA FAMILLE BELIER is showing on Tuesday 8th September at 16:00 at The Light.
httpvh://youtu.be/mzWvI8BkrJo