Le Figaro 22.10.2008


CINEMA
*** Tricks
film by Andrzej Jakimowki withz Damian Ul (1:34).
** Magique
film by Philippe Muyl, with Marie Gillain (1: 31).

On the posters this week — two travels to the country of childhood.

   EVERYTHING is flooded with bright sunlight. Is it the summer or the childhood that gilds this Polish village of no charm, where Stefek walks his 10 year around in the burning idleness of summer holidays? He spends his time wandering around and following his big sister to her job interviews. Their mother is the owner of a local grocery. There is no father. Still, his absence fills in the dreams of the little boy. If he left one day, then he might as well come back. Stefek wanders around the train station, scatters some coins on the rails or deploys his tin soldiers like some votive signs. The stranger, whom he watches from the bench, is it “him”? It’s necessary to force the chance, drag him out of the station and make him come closer to the grocery.
   Tricks by Andrzej Jakimowski wonderfully capture these secret games of the child, his strategies, obviously playful, though so imperious. How much is there of chance and how much of the magic of the desiring boy in the wanderings of the traveler on the streets of the town? The art of the filmmaker is to keep the balance between external realism of people and places and the personal perception of the child, all shrouded with the enchanted boredom of summer holidays. With a mixture of lightness and focus, carefreeness and melancholy, the young actor, Damian Ul, transforms the day, where hardly anything happens, into a suspense that makes heart beat faster.
    By coincidence, this week we can see another film on the same theme, but in a different style. In Magique, de Philippe Muyl, the main character is also a 10-year-old boy, Tommy, who lives alone with his mother, Betty (Marie Gillain) at a farm in Canada also dreams about his absent father. Betty never talks to him about it, but she is worried. Tommy wants to make her smile again. A circus group appears and the nearby meadow becomes populated with clowns and acrobats, who teach Betty and Tommy the joy of life. And Betty will find love with the romantic Baptiste (Cali).

Coloring
    It is the first role of the singer and he sings the songs of the film. Magique is a nice musical tale that the little one will love. Fresh simplicity of the air matches the naive imagery, acquired thanks to somewhat blurred photography and clearly sketched interpretation, very playful with the circus group. We are in a drawing book.
    Magique is a film for children, where all the dramas are solved and tests passed to make it understandable for the little ones and give them an optimistic ending: after the rain there comes the sun, after loneliness, there is joy of being together. Tricks is a film about childhood, a film deeply going into the magic, adventurous loneliness and, especially, into the experience of being. Childhood is not a moment of life. It is a way of living. MARIE-NOËLLE TRANCHANT