Qu'un seul tienne et les autres suivront (2009) User Reviews

The Heart IS an Amazing Thing

[film_ophile · 8/10 · 12 July 2010]

Silent Voices

We saw this yesterday as part of the annual 2010 French Film Festival at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. As emotionally brutal as is one of the three parallel stories in this film, it was still a welcome relief from the nastiness of its festival predecessor, The Time of the Charity Fete is Over.

This amazing Cannes Award winning Best First Film was a terrific piece of work. I was fully absorbed into the three stories. A Moroccan widow journeys to Marseilles to find out why her son was murdered. A lovely middle class 17 year old falls in first-love with a charismatic street punk. A hapless spineless immigrant loser considers a money and life altering scheme that will have him exchanging places with a look-alike hard core criminal doing time. Aside from prison,all three stories shared a few common themes- leaving someone and being left, and inexplicable, deep, raw, soul-filled love. While the stories may have been reminiscent of others before them , the film was well scripted and the performances were 100% spot on.( I did feel that the film would have been much stronger if the last mentioned story were a different one; I just did not care about the loser, and it felt like his story, the least interesting of all to me, took the most time to tell.) I fully expect and hope to see the Moroccan woman, and the girl and boy, move on to become major stars. When they are on screen, your eyes are fully on them, and your heart is there too.

It makes perfect sense to me that the director , a most talented woman, Lea Fehner, grew up adjacent to a prison and worked with prisoners in her Social Work career. Her portrayal of these people and their lives, and the prison visiting days (all three stories share these)is completely documentary like in its authenticity. ( shudder. be thankful.) I look forward to her continued success.

Visiting hours

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 16 July 2011]

The initial scene is a bit disorienting. We would have to wait for almost the end of it to see where it fits. The film by director Lea Fehner, a former social worker, well acquainted with the lives of prisoners and their families, tries her hand at making sense of the tragedy people in her story are going through. In a way, this film reminds us a bit of other movies where different lives, unrelated to one another converge in a common area, usually at the end of the story to clarify it for us.

There is Laure, a teenager who is into playing soccer at her school. She meets a young man, Alexandre, on a bus, on her way home. He manages to get her interest as the two become intimate. Alexandre, a name he has given himself, lands in jail for attacking a police officer. He has a long history of petty crime. Laure is sad, when she finds out about Alexandre's plight. Being a minor, she cannot visit him in prison. To get around it, she befriends Antoine, a medial technician to help her get to see her man.

We meet Zorah, an Algerian woman that has gone back to Algiers to bring her dead son, who has been fatally wounded. Not heeding the advice of her relatives, Zorah decides to return to Marseille, where she hopes to get to know the reason for her son's death. One day, while walking, she sees Celine, a real estate agent, crying inside her office. Celine is inconsolable. The reason of her sorrow has to do with her brother being in prison, accused of killing a man. Celine offers Zorah a job, helping her with her two children on her spare time. But Celine wants her to do something for her, she cannot do, visit her brother in jail.

The other character in the story is Stephane, a young man that works as a sort of messenger, using his motorcycle for work. He lives with Elsa, a complicated woman that resorts to turning tricks in order to get some money for drinking. Elsa is battered by three guys coming out of the metro. Fortunately, she is saved by Pierre, a mysterious man that is taken aback by Stephane, when he meets him. There is an uncanny resemblance to his partner in crime, now serving time. Pierre has an interesting proposal, why not change places with his buddy? Stephane will become rich if he goes along with the plan, where supposedly, he stands to get a light sentence after he is found out.

"Silent Voices", directed by Lea Fehner, keeps out attention. All these souls have suffered blows that life thrown in their path. How they deal with the tragedies that each has suffered is the basis for three people being in jail for crimes and it serves as the ultimate converging point of all the characters. The film has a slow pace, much of what is going to happen is presented by degrees, the viewer's sense of disorientation helps to become interested in the three narratives Ms. Fehner presents.

Ms. Fehner's achievement has been in the way she handled her cast. Best of all, Farida Rahouadi who plays the grieving mother Zorah. Her performance is controlled, without any hysterics some other director would have gone for. Zorah's dignity in reaching out of her son's killer shows Ms. Rahouadi's talent. Reda Kateb is seen as Stephane. He is a young actor that has been getting good roles and seems poised for a nice career in the movies. Pauline Etienne is wonderful as Laure, the confused teen that experiences her first love. Marc Barbe, Dinara Drukarova, Vincen Rottiers, Julien Lucas and Delphine Chillot are excellent in supporting roles.

Well appreciated, good acting, but few defects

[wassim-filali · 7/10 · 19 December 2009]

The whole atmosphere and surroundings are ideal for a drama movie, and even a bit closed on this dark side. Too much talks and not enough free silent moments for the feelings to sustain. Well worked out; even a bit tricky, disconcerting and I personally think that it's a weakness to fix the scenario with highly lucky events, but others might like. It's definitely worth watching for the drama fans. It seems to have some inspiration from the big Faith Akin's "Auf der anderen Seite". It brings a lot by its characters simplicity and realism, yet lacks an artistic touch and global homogeneity or links that would take it farther from documentary and short film spirit.

A French MAGNIOLIA, BOOGIE NIGHTS or COLLISION ?

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8 January 2024]

This French movie is, as we say in France, an ensemble film, that means a plot where different characters, different stories, fates, who have nothing to do one with the other, meet. It is exciting to watch and not that hard to follow. The editing is the main character in this kind of films where there is precisely no lead character. See what I mean? Characterization is purely awesome, acting flawless, with a then beginning Reda Kateb and Vincent Rottiers. It is a social drama, so typical in the French film industry. The element that will help those fates to meet is a prison. The female director was only twenty eight years old when she made this movie. An early talent for sure.

prison as axis

[Kirpianuscus · 23 July 2023]

Prison as axis of three lives.

A Moroccan widow looking for understand the death of her son.

A teenager girl falling in love with a presumed cool guy.

A loser front to strange opportunity being used for escape of a out law man looking like him.

Each story as portrait of deep loneliness and seed of a form of chance to sense of life.

The jail atmosphere, the steps of visit, the conversations as a sort of spider webs, the way to define small realities are virtues of this film precise crafted scene by scene about choices, desires , gestures and words changing near reality for each character.

Simple truths, impressive story of Morocan mother and the dialogue with the murderer of his son.