Yuki et Nina (2009)
Directed by Hippolyte Girardot, Nobuhiro Suwa

Film Review

The hardest thing for an adult to do is to enter the world of a child.  Having negotiated the turmoil of adolescence and been conditioned to put aside all things childish, it is virtually impossible to go back and look at the world as a child.  Yet this is what Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa - aided and abetted by first time filmmaker Hippolyte Girardot - achieves with this remarkable portrait of childhood, one of the most original and insightful French films of 2009.  Not only does the film offer one of cinema's most authentic depictions of the fragility of childhood, through the experiences of two adorable young girls who cannot bear to be separated, it is also a work with a unique and beguiling poetry, the happiest union of the auteur aesthetics of French and Japanese cinema.

Hippolyte Girardot needs no introduction.  Since his memorable leading role in Eric Rochant's Un monde sans pitié (1989) he has become one of France's most committed and respected actors, most at home in unconventional and challenging auteur films such as Maroun Bagdadi's Hors la vie (1991) and Patrice Leconte's Le Parfum d'Yvonne (1994).  Not yet 60, the eternally youthful Girardot shows no sign of slowing down and it is not too late for him to start a whole new career as a film director.  Since his feature debut 2/Duo (1997), Nobuhiro Suwa has established himself as one of Japan's most promising independent filmmakers, his films distinguished by bold improvisational techniques that instantly bring to mind some of the early films of the French New Wave.   Together, Girardot and Suwa create a film that has characteristics of both French and Japanese cinema, a film that combines the intimacy of such accomplished French auteurs as Jacques Doillon and Eric Rohmer with the enchanting lyrical style of Japanese masters Yasujirô Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. 

It is impossible to review Yuki et Nina without paying tribute to the two young actresses who carry the film with effortless charm, Noë Sampy and Arielle Moutel.  Each a compelling and authentic performer in her own right, able to play long (Ozu-like) sequences with breathtaking naturalism and heart-rending truth, both angelic performers evoke not only the innocence of childhood but also the cruelty and injustice, the heartache that inevitably comes when childish fantasies collide with the grim realities of adult life.  Where the film is most successful is in forcing us to see the world from a child's perspective, so that we not only empathise with the child protagonists but feel a genuine sense of sorrow and loss as their last years of innocence are torn from them and they are driven reluctantly into the adult world.  Yuki et Nina is a refreshingly modest and understated film, but few films are as effective in reconnecting us with our own childhood and reminding us what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a child - a bewildering dreamworld where anything is possible, even reconcilliation between adults.

Film Synopsis

When Yuki, a 9-year-old Franco-Japanese girl, learns that her parents are about to separate, she realises that she must accompany her mother to Japan.  This revelation is devastating.   Not only will Yuki lose contact with her father but she will also have to leave behind Nina, her only true friend.  Together, the two girls make a desperate attempt to prevent Yuki's parents from separating.  In the end, the only hope they have for staying together is to run away...