Petite Solange

Petite Solange is a film of great tenderness and sensitivity. The director, Axelle Ropert is known for exploring familial themes and does so here with great insight, letting the camera do much of the work, even as she luxuriates in lengthy film shots and often dwells on her subject, the gorgeous Jade Springer who plays the lead role of 13 year old Solange (Springer was actually 15 or 16 at the time of shooting). Springer's ability to telegraph meaning with her eyes, her looks and physical movements is breathtaking, and Ropert has given her significant reign in shaping the contours of Solange's emotional experience as she navigates the difficulties of her parent's fragmenting marriage. Largely alone, detached from the others in her family, who are busy pursuing their own interests, the inquisitive and intelligent Solange navigates the disintegration of her life without recourse or the support of the adults around her. This is a 'coming of age' story with a girl at it's center and an ending that's satisfying even if neither tidy nor happy. In that regard, it breaks the mold with much of the genre. It is a quiet, meditative film which is unusually well cast. The largely self-centered parents, played by Lea Drucker and Phillipe Katerine are wonderful. Solange's serious and cerebral brother, Roman, played by Grégoire Montana is also excellent. Axelle Ropert scores marvelously with this intelligent, quietly paced but powerful film.

I loved the beautiful acting of young Jade Springer. In good measure, it is her film, the steps of maturisation being fair and precise defined, scene by scene.

Between school and family, a young girl fights to understand the life. The tensioned relation between parents, the absence of elder brother, studying in Spain, the mistress of father, the bad state of mother are pieces of a difficult travel to define the near realty in proper terms.

The result , realistic, gentle and inspired, portrait of acceptance of truth and an ambiguous end, defining the refuge in personal life , far by parents problems .

If the trailer didn't bring tears to your eyes or at least give you goosebumps, then this movie is not for you. It is true that not much more than what you see in the trailer happens during the 85 minutes. The movie is just an extended version of the trailer, but the plot and the events are not the main features of this film. The predominant feature of this film is sentiment. The sentiment of a girl in adolescence that has her whole world shattered to pieces. The desperate sadness she feels when her parents decide to divorce and sell the house petite Solange grew up in. She is forced to grow up fast, through extreme amounts of pain, to the realization that life is not easy, nor pleasant, and nobody had ever prepared her for that. In the end, petite Solange reaches a high level of maturity and speaks out words of wisdom that even adults are in many cases unable to think and say. The epimyth of the film is that "Life goes on..."

The film is appropriate only for people with a high level of sensitivity, that have been through extremely rough phases in life. The rest might not be able to understand or appreciate it.

I loved it truly and wholeheartedly and I'm glad this piece of cinematography existed.

For people who like movies where nothing happens aside from what's in the films description, this is for you. Otherwise it is a bore and waste of time. These characters are incredibly flat. The acting is good, the music is nice and it looks good but there really isn't much to this at all.