Ursula Meier’s first film was the high/low concept movie
Home, about a family living beside a motorway, a curious blend of the cerebral
and the emotional. On the one hand it appears to reference Godard’s Weekend or
the work of Ballard. On the other it’s a study of the modern family and the
extraordinary pressures it faces. It’s also one of those films where the
conceit controls the narrative. A where-can-this-go-next kind of film.
Sister, her follow-up, has a different kind of feel. We’re
in more traditional European art movie territory. It has been compared to the
work of Dardennes brothers but this is also the neo-realist territory of
Bicycle Thieves and its ilk. Meier locates her story (interestingly her credit
is for ‘scenario’, thereafter working with other writers to flesh out the story
and dialogue) within the world of the Swiss winter ski season. A brother and a
sister live in a high rise block, below the gleaming peaks, and struggle to
make ends meet. Simon, 12, has turned to petty theft. He steals anything from
skis to goggles and sells them on at discount prices. Meanwhile his sister,
Louise, who is in her early 20s, is something of a waster, going with random
guys and unable to look after herself. It’s Simon’s criminal enterprise which
keeps them afloat.
This premise immediately sets the film up for moments of
exquisite tension, with the pint-sized Simon constantly on the point of getting
caught. This strand is balanced by the development of his relationship with
Louise, one that becomes ever more complex. At one point, he resorts to paying
her for affection. In an uncomfortable scene, the 12 year old curls up in bed
with her. These are characters for whom the distinction between maturity and
immaturity barely exists: survival in their strange isolated world is all that
matters. Until the final scenes, when Louise finally starts to take
responsibility for both her own life and Simon’s.
All of this is told with an economy which ensures the narrative,
surprises and all, moves along briskly. A couple of showy cameos are more or
less seamlessly integrated and the acting of the two leads, Kacey Mottet Klein
& Léa Seydoux is impeccable. Klein gives on of those astonishing
performances which only children can, one which seems to almost transcend ‘acting’.The
cinematography makes the most of the peaks and troughs of the mountain
landscape, suggesting the way in which its geography maps on to human geology:
those who bask in the white glory of the summit, where the cold is another
luxury, are opposed to those condemned to the muddy trenches of the valleys.
Meier’s vision is perhaps reminiscent of the work of
Jelinek, observing the way that those who inhabit the uplands, whilst ready to
condemn Simon as a thief, have no scruples buying their bargains from him.
Everyone is complicit in an amoral system. Beneath this observation lurks,
perhaps, an icier critique. Why should some be granted the financial freedom to
roam the beautiful peaks whilst others have to steal to get by. The moment when
Simon seeks a hug from the idealised mother figure, Gillian Anderson, is the
moment where the worlds collide. Here the social critique is fully rounded, as
the audience roots for the thief and hopes that her victim can find it in her
heart, and perhaps redeem herself, by forgiving him. It’s an affecting
narrative moment in a impressively constructed film.
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