Set Me Free (1999) User Reviews

An Excellent French-Canadian Drama

[grand_schuttz · 8/10 · 19 March 2008]

This is a sometimes touching, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes funny look at a girl's transition from childhood to womanhood. Hanna's (the main character) life story closely mirrors the development of Quebecois society, and the film's 1963 setting furthers that idea. Hanna is caught between her father's Jewish background and her mother's traditional, Catholic upbringing. She spends her summers in rural Quebec while living in the rapidly changing city of Montreal. Also, she is influenced by Jean-Luc Godard's now-classic Vivre sa vie, and Hanna attempts to emulate the behaviours of that film's prostitute protagonist. This is a film very concerned with the beauty of self-expression while also acknowledging the challenges such pursuits present to us all (seen especially in the father's tormented dream of being a poet). Though the film deals with some very traumatic subject matters, it also leaves us with a glimmer of hope that is beautiful in its ambiguity.

Lea Pool's direction wavers between high degrees of realism and stunning experimental styles, and she weaves them together seamlessly to reflect Hanna's state of mind. Lovers of classical cinema will certainly enjoy this film. Some of the camera work--such as the film's opening few minutes, and Hanna's flight through the streets of Montreal--are nothing short of spectacular.

Finally, the acting of the film's central three characters (Hanna, her father, and her mother) is exceptional. Hanna's exchanges with her exhausted mother are genuine and heartfelt, while the fits of rage directed toward her father are equally so. Both parents play their roles with enough pathos to be convincing, but they stay well away from overacting or exceeding what the script requires of them.

Young people may struggle to identify with the themes of the film, but a slightly older audience will certainly be left with much to reflect upon.

Family madness.

[DukeEman · 7/10 · 3 January 2002]

Set in 1963, Montreal, and fourteen year old Hanna, (Karine Vanasse), journeys through a bad patch in life. Her mum is mentally ill, her father is a dead end poet and her brother a little rebel but going through the same turmoil as she is. When reality fails you, you turn to the movies. In this instant, Hanna discovers Jean-Luc Godard's VIVRE SA VIE, a little gem about the exploits of a Parisian hooker, (Anna Karina). Taking on that film's persona to heighten her life, she falls into sexual misadventures. This all under the caring direction of Lea Pool, who throws in a few classic tunes of that era to brighten the mood.

An historian is missing on the crew

[MarioB · 6/10 · 3 March 2000]

Lea Pool is a brillant director, but sometimes, her films are a little bit boring. But this one is absolutely her best work. A good story, a wonderful sense of image, and the actors are all very well directed. I think this is an effort for Pool to go mainstreem. But, for me, as an historian, this movie have big problems... The story is set in 1963 (the song Mockingbird, heard in the movie, tells me that.) The way Leo Pool describes Quebec society and the culture of the French Canadians of the time had nothing to do with 1963. It's all look like 1973-76. It had no historical respect of the facts of 1963. For example, Lea Pool shows us the Jean-Luc Godard movie Vivre sa vie, and the young Karine Vanasse identifies herself to Anna Karina in that movie. In the early sixties, most of the nouvelle vague French cinema (like this Godard film) were not released in Quebec. By that time, censorship was very strong and I'm sure that the prostitute character of miss Karina in that Godard film was banned from the Board of Censorship. The Godard movie is from 1962. By that time, French movies always takes three, and sometimes four years to get to Quebec's movie theatres. For me, it's impossible that this movie was shown in Quebec in 1963. Let's also say that in 1963, the legal age to go to a movie house was 16. But Karine Vanasse is 13 in that movie! Also, the way the father of Karine Vanasse wear his hairs is< absolutely 1973-75! The facts that most of the young girls wore trousers is also strange! So is the girl kissing Karine, her brother kissing her, in a so natural way is simply impossible. Lea Pool was born in Switzerland. She cames to Quebec en 1978. Critics says that Emporte-moi was about her life as a young teenager. It could be better if the film was set in Europe. In Europe, the Godard film was shown, the cultural aspects of the people were more liberal than in Quebec, who was still a very Catholic and conservative society, by that time. These little facts annoyed me. When you make a movie set in the past, it's very important to respect the period. Leo Pool didn't. I don't mean that Emporte-moi is a bad movie. Not at all! It's fanastic and young Karine is superb, so is the great Pascale Bussières (our best actress in Quebec and Canada.) But if an historian was part of the crew to tells miss Pool what's illogic, it could be a lot better.

A great film about family and adolescence...

[hédi · 16 August 1999]

Hanna (Karine Vanasse) is a Canadian teenager in the early sixties.And she shapes her own identity. Her parents escape from their responsibilities: her father prefers playing chess to working; and her mother is a depressive woman (several suicide attempts). That's why she decides of leading her own life. But Reality is stronger than she expected: Life bites hard...

Emporte-moi is partly an autobiographical movie. Léa Pool presents an interesting analysis of the familial relationship and adolescence. Well, this melancholy movie is very touching. Even the scene of the abandoned dog moved. Anyway, the acting is quite perfect and right. Karine Vanasse is magic, Miki Manojlovic surprising in comparison with his performance in "Underground".We can just regret the underemployment of Pascales Bussières, which is paradoxical given the closed relationship between Hanna and her mother.

Well...I have to say that anyone get out of the cinema before the closing credits:a surprise is awaiting you. I put a 8 out of 10.

Wait for a dull Sunday afternnon

[lucdrouin · 6/10 · 18 December 2021]

Most IMDB reviews about this film having been written the same year or so after its release, I have the luxury of a 22 years distance to appreciate it. And so, I am not as enthusiastic. The acting is competent, although Karine Vanasse's, 16 at the time and with little experience, is not flawless in tone. The father is a caricature of an impotent dead-ender and an insensitive figure with his children, while the mother is over her head in work to provide for the family as her husband is unreliable, and thus, with problems of her own, she is unavailable for her maturing daughter. Hannah (Karine Vanasse) is growing up in that context, like millions of teens of any nationality did before her and millions more will, trying to anchor herself to some delusion while it lasts. As such, nothing is new under the sun and a film has to be remarkable to make us believe otherwise.

That said, I agree with MarioB's review. The society depicted in the film is a modern one by all means. Quebec society in 1963 was much more dogmatic. I don't know what school Hannah went to, but at the time, people were very conformist and the norms were Catholics. A Jew (they killed Christ, didn't they?) living unmarried with a Catholic woman = bad, the children were the product of sin and they had to be made aware of that in no polite terms in school by schoolmates and teachers alike. In addition the mother was probably working at 60 % a man's salary as it was usual since she didn't need so much income as she had a husband. He was not working? Then he was a lazy bum and the family got what it deserved. I know all this because I was there and I remember. That is one of the reasons why the Catholic Church has been having a bad rap in Quebec since the 60s; those who remember are still mad about it as I am.

To answer imdb1's and grand_schuttz's reviews: for the reasons said above, it is not a typical French portrait of a Quebec family. Indeed, it is very atypical.

Conclusion: the story is unremarkable and the historical context is wrong. It's a fine film for a dull Sunday afternoon.

A typical French "portrait" of a family.

[imdb1 · 7/10 · 5 April 2000]

As most French movies, according to me, also in this movie there is no clear story line, nothing that is more important, nothing that the movie "is about". I'd almost say, no beginning, no end, no moral. A typical French movie: A portrait. A portrait of a family in this case, with a 13 year old girl as main character (although she looks 16 most of the time). What is nice about a movie like this is that you become more a part of it, it is much more like real life and therefore a lot more interesting in some way. Nevertheless, when things are TOO normal you get bored. And this movie has only two or three really interesting aspects: The relationships within the family (sister, brother, father, mother) and the first romance of Hanna. Can't remember the third actually. The reason I gave this movie a 7 and not a 6 is because I really enjoyed those two aspects and because the acting of Karine Vanasse is very professional, impressive.

set me free

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 3 February 2023]

The first third of this film does a good job of establishing the setting and the mood, namely lower middle class, French Canadian Montreal in 1963 and a teenage girl, Hanna, stuck in a very bad family situation, what with an abusive, ne'r do well father and a beaten down, depressive mother. But then the film slows down, stalls out and kind of circles around itself as we are treated to a basic misery stew composed of dad's mental and physical assaults against his family, mom's suicide attempt, a nasty, anti Semitic landlady, a pervy baker who exchanges bread for sexual favors from Hanna and a general air of poverty and gloom as winter sets in and money goes out. Lighter ingredients include Hanna's loving older brother with whom she has an incestuous relationship (sigh), a female friend to whom Hanna is physically attracted, a wise, supportive high school teacher (not too much of a cliche there, right?) And a cute dog.

Then, following Hanna's less than credible descent into prostitution, for which we are asked to blame her obsession with "Vivre Se Vie", perhaps sensing the audience going "Give me a freakin break!", director Lea Pool does a rather unconvincing 180 and ends on a false, cloying note of reconciliation and sweetness which left both Roger Ebert and this viewer less than enthralled.

Bottom line: Despite this film's flaws, if for no other reason than her ability to elicit a fine performance from teen actor Karine Vanasse as Hanna I would be interested in seeing more of Ms. Pool's work. C plus.

Great

[zetes · 9/10 · 26 February 2016]

Excellent coming-of-age story. It feels really lived in. I'm not sure if it's autobiographical, but it sure feels like it. Karine Vanasse plays 13 year-old Hanna, a girl from Montreal with kind of a rough family life. Her parents are unmarried and poor, and along with her older brother they all live in a cramped apartment. Hanna falls in love with Godard's Vivre sa vie, and inspired by it, she is led down a dangerous path. As you might expect with the genre, there are moments of joy along with the pain. Novelist Nancy Huston plays Hanna's teacher, who reminds her of Anna Karina - she looks so much like Karina I spent the whole movie thinking it was her. The only big problem of the film is that Vanasse is not convincing as a 13 year-old - the actress is a couple of years older than that, and looks it. She is very good, though, as an actress.

Poetically solemn and solemnly poetic

[mollytinkers · 7/10 · 23 January 2023]

If you're looking for an uplifting film, you won't find it here. Without knowing anything about the director, I'm assuming this movie is, at least somewhat, autobiographical. It feels extremely personal, and I did experience a sense of kinship in its coming-of-age elements.

I don't know how old the teenagers were during filming; but if made today and the lead actors were under 18 years of age, it's highly likely someone would be charged with a crime. Despite its exploitive moments, it does somehow capture the innocence of discovering physical affection during pubescence. Nothing explicit, mind you, but enough to make me uncomfortable--and rest assured, I'm no prude.

I definitely liked it, but I won't watch it again. Recommended only for film junkies.

Merveilleux... as we say in French!

[Oreste · 9/10 · 12 October 1999]

This movie is just great!

It explores with subtlety the very complicated emotional relations between a young girl, her catholic depressive mother, her jewish father, her brother, her new "girl" friend. Entangled in her newborn exploding sexuality and her rebellious thoughts, she tries to deal with the great issues of life in 1963.

The acting is so precise and touching, and the direction, efficient and delicate, it's a must see movie. A great one.

Fabulous, Karine Vanasse is the new queen!

[MrZebra-3 · 10/10 · 9 March 1999]

"Emporte-moi" is the latest Léa Pool movie. I was invited to the premiere in Montreal at the Loews theater. I was stunned! It's one of the best movies I've ever seen. Newcomer Karine Vanasse (who I had the chance to meet) does to this movie what Tori Amos does for her albums. What I mean is that she brings the movie to life and supports it all magnifically on her back. This is the new talent out of Quebec for the year 2000. Also, you can not put aside the brilliant performances by Pascale Buissière and the rest of the cast. To conclude, go see it right away or if you ever get your hands on a copy when it goes to video, don't waste your chance of seeing this genius movie.

Great Godard clips.

[the red duchess · 5/10 · 19 February 2001]

The heroine's search for a personal identity takes the form of striking between oppposites - girl/boy, mother/father, film/reality, country/city, Judaism/Catholicism, conformity/individuality. This is a rites-of-passage as Portrait Of The Filmmaker as a Young Woman, with Hanna taking inspiration (and dangerously, destiny) from Anna, Karina that is, in 'Vivre Sa Vie', while storing up, Wordsworth-like, artistic inspiration from Godard. Pool's conventional filmmaking puts Godard's masterwork in relief, and makes it seem even more miraculous.

Beautifully done coming-of-age story.

[Jo B · 9/10 · 24 November 1999]

Caught between childhood and the adult world, in a time similarly challenged by change, Karine Vanasse is enchanting as a girl coming of age in 1960s Quebec. Parents, teachers, sex, philosophy, obsession with a film character, running away -- we've seen it all before, but this is a loving remembrance, shot in warm colours, with a thoughtful script and excellent performances, richly evoking the emotion, confusion and excitement of adolescence.

Wonderful acting in a wistful film

[melba19 · 9/10 · 3 December 2003]

Young Karine Vanasse is astounding. Her stillness, poise & expressiveness - combined with youthful yearning and curiosity - completely draw you in.

Pascale Bussières, as always, doesn't disappoint.

I loved it, it made my 16th Jerusalem Film Festival.

[squeejnb · 10/10 · 3 August 1999]

I first saw the movie in the Jerusalem Film Festival 1999. It took me by surprise. Until this movie I didn't see many movies in Jerusalem that I got out of the movie and wanted to meet all the actors, and wanted to know everything about them. What can I tell you, the movie was AMAZING. I have never seen another like it. The actors are great, the photogarphy is beautifull, everything is so well-done and well-planned, that there are no bad words. It made my festival. I'm sure it'll make your day.