Three Days and a Life

Another story that has been scripted many many times, but which fortunately stands out favorably for its pace and the intricacy of the problems that the main protagonist will face. Simple, but effective implementation. A little extra effort on the makeup side for the adult characters would have been wise when we jump back in time in the last part of the film. The physical resemblance and performance of the actors who play the main character (Jérémie Senez - the young Antoine Courtin and Pablo Pauli - the adult Antoine Courtin) is downright striking and adds to the credibility of the film for the good of it!

Summary

Based on a remarkable novel by Pierre Lemaitre (also the film's screenwriter), Three Days and a Life is a kind of moral essay (in the best sense) on the scope of a tragic incident (plus others of varying severity and characteristics), chance and the passage of time on the destiny of a twelve-year-old boy.

Review

Antoine, a 12-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the Belgian Ardennes, stars in a tragic event whose shadow will be projected over several years of his life.

On each of the days of the title this and two other very dissimilar events occur, but strangely they will operate together on the fate of the protagonist (whom the action takes up several years later) and the knowledge of the truth.

Based on a remarkable novel by Pierre Lemaitre (also the film's screenwriter), Three Days and a Life is a kind of moral essay (in the best sense) about the scope of a specific incident (plus the other two, actually), chance and the passage of time on the destiny of a person and their personal ties.

With a town and a forest (a scenario that would later proliferate in the French and Belgian police), Nicolas Boukhrief's film is more of a drama than a thriller. Or rather: the success and the disturbing thing about this story is the psychology of a protagonist organized in such a way that both territories can alternate but not overlap. There is an asordinate daily life in that battered community (in more ways than one) to which Antoine is reintegrated without problems. Rob's serene soundtrack helps remarkably define that mood.

The performances of Jeremy Senez as the child Antoine, Pablo Pauly as the adult Antoine and Sandrine Bonnaire as a mother capable of expressing a thousand emotions just with her expressions and her silences are highlighted.

All the elements are there, the plot, the acting, the set, the atmosphere... But the pace is uneven, it lags at times and then suddenly, many years pass or important things happen in a second and, mostly, out of the view.

The time passes and I keep waiting for the mistery to unravel or the conflict to arise, but they never do, and since all the cards are laid on the table from the get go, there's no big reveal or twist at the end to reward the audience's patience .

It has some silly, but distracting, errors, such as people looking exactly the same way they looked fifteen years ago, or the supermarket cashier and the police officer that look the same as they did a decade ago, and are expecting their first child, like it had been 3 years since the events, not 15!

Furthermore, almost everyone made some quite questionable decisions, that are never fully explained.

Love French cinema, especially the noir thrillers, so I thought this movie would be right up my alley, but I was dissapointed.

The cinematography is gorgeous and the movie has a great choice of music, scenes are filmed in dynamic shots that are very much character focused.

The story is filled with tention, and some great pieces of dialogue, pacing sometimes feels a bit odd as the movie skips large periods of time however the scenes we did see all serve a purpose.

It is a little slow, have to say, but it's good. I don't understand the relationship between Antoine and his mother. She was so cold and they never talked about things that had happened to him. Every single caring mom would ask her son what is going on. Even when she found out that he witnessed the dog being shot, she didn't ask her son about it. Weird. Years later, he came back to the village and due to the circumstances he decided to stay there. His mother never asked about his sudden change of plans. Then, her partner revealed that he had known the whole truth, and probably, she had too, but she never spoke to her son about it. These are the things I didn't like, everything else was well made.