Je m'apelle Elisabeth

Jean-Pierre Ameris’ Je m’apelle Elisabeth has many of the best traits of French cinema.

For one, it is a movie about childhood, a French specialty. I do not know why the French should be so especially good at making films about children, but they are. They make films about how the world seems to children – mysterious, frightening and wonderful, about the difficult and confusing learning process, about the inner states of the little people still learning how and what to feel and think. Such as the way half opened doors scare them. Film makers of other nations do not seem to notice what a rich vein of material this is.

French films about children show a very nuanced, insightful, and empathic view of children which is entirely free of any preachiness. The psychology of French films about children is also very rich because, like in most serious French cinema, so much is left unsaid: dialogues are sparse, there is much silence; the films show rather than explain, allowing the viewers to make their own guesses as to what is going on inside. This is by far the preferred method: after all, no one ever knows what is really going on inside; we are all mostly groping to understand our own selves; how could we presume to explain someone else? Far better to show – and let the viewer make his own guesses.

Like many French films, Je m’apelle Elisabeth is also extremely beautiful visually; I don’t know why the colors of French films should be so beautiful; after all, the technology is the same as that used in California. Yet, the colors are not the same; whether this is a function of the climate or of the culture, I do not know. And there is a lot of really beautiful photography: wind-tussled trees bathed in silver moonlight seen through the dark frame of the window; walkers in the frame of trees.

And then there is the usual French cinema trick: the setting. The heroes of French films invariably reside in some really fantastic real estate: huge beautiful homes with furniture to kill for and glassed doors opening onto lush gardens. The French have an advantage over the Americans here.

And the typical French ending: so this is how things stand, now, what shall we do with it? French films do not typically offer a resolution, perhaps in recognition of the fact that there is never in life an ever after, only more of the same; when a French film does appear to offer a resolution, this often is nuanced – some might say muddled – a kind of compromise, or resignation, or acceptance; a very Old World kind of message.

Which is perhaps the reason why I like French films: they aren’t American.