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A Few Hours of Spring

Original title: Quelques heures de printemps
  • 2012
  • 1h 48m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
827
YOUR RATING
A Few Hours of Spring (2012)
Trailer for Quelques Heures de Printemps
Play trailer1:59
1 Video
1 Photo
Drama

Alain Evrard, a trucker who has just finished serving a prison sentence, is forced to temporarily move back to his mother's house. This forced co-habitation causes all the violence of their ... Read allAlain Evrard, a trucker who has just finished serving a prison sentence, is forced to temporarily move back to his mother's house. This forced co-habitation causes all the violence of their past relationship to re-emerge. One day, Alain accidentally discovers Yvette, his mother, ... Read allAlain Evrard, a trucker who has just finished serving a prison sentence, is forced to temporarily move back to his mother's house. This forced co-habitation causes all the violence of their past relationship to re-emerge. One day, Alain accidentally discovers Yvette, his mother, by a brain tumor and that she has decided to shorten her suffering by resorting to assiste... Read all

  • Director
    • Stéphane Brizé
  • Writers
    • Stéphane Brizé
    • Florence Vignon
  • Stars
    • Vincent Lindon
    • Hélène Vincent
    • Emmanuelle Seigner
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.9/10
    827
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Stéphane Brizé
    • Writers
      • Stéphane Brizé
      • Florence Vignon
    • Stars
      • Vincent Lindon
      • Hélène Vincent
      • Emmanuelle Seigner
    • 8User reviews
    • 14Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 6 nominations

    Videos1

    Quelques Heures de Printemps
    Trailer 1:59
    Watch Quelques Heures de Printemps

    Photos

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    Top cast

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    Vincent Lindon
    Vincent Lindon
    • Alain Évrard
    Hélène Vincent
    Hélène Vincent
    • Yvette Évrard
    Emmanuelle Seigner
    Emmanuelle Seigner
    • Clémence
    Olivier Perrier
    Olivier Perrier
    • Monsieur Lalouette
    Sylvie Jobert
    • L'employée de Pôle Emploi
    Ludovic Berthillot
    • Bruno
    Silvia Kahn
    • Le docteur Mathieu - la cancérologue
    Jean-Luc Borgeat
    • Le responsable de l'association Mourir dans la Dignité
    Véronique Montel
    • Madame Godard, l'accompagnante de l'association Mourir dans la Dignité
    Abdoulaye Dramé
    • Un agent du centre de tri de déchets recyclables
    Axel Beasse
    • L'opérateur de radiothérapie
    Alice Bonacossa
    • Le bébé de Bruno
    Julie Bonacossa
    • Le bébé de Bruno
    Véronique Leclair
    • L'opératrice du scanner
    Callie
    • Callie - la chienne d'Yvette
    Mauricette Gourdon
    • Colette
    • (scenes deleted)
    Annie Savarin
    • Gilberte
    • (scenes deleted)
    Pascal Tréguy
    • Head Animal Trainer
    • Director
      • Stéphane Brizé
    • Writers
      • Stéphane Brizé
      • Florence Vignon
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      Swiss censorship certificate # 1008.845.

    User reviews8

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    9/10
    Things are the way they should be
    Sandwiched between the Cannes Film Festival screening of Michael Haneke's "Amour", the May 2012 Palme d'Or ceremony and the much acclaimed October release of the Austrian director's last film, "Quelques heures de printemps" (A Few Hours of Spring), Stéphane Brizé's masterpiece, shown in September and dealing with approximately the same theme (a person's end of life experience and its consequences on a close relative), paled in terms of box office but not at all as a work of art. For, even though it has been seen by only 300,000 people in France (nothing to be ashamed of but this outstanding movie certainly deserved better), it will doubtless become a classic that will be seen and seen again profitably by the future generations. If "Amour" concerns an old woman who gradually descends into death, "A Few Hours of Spring" (a fine title paying homage to another classic, Claude Sautet's "A Few Days with Me") describes the last months of Yvette Evrard (Hélène Vincent in an amazing César-winning performance), an aging mother who has decided to die in order not to suffer the indignities of the terminal stages of a brain tumor. And where Anne's close relative in "Amour" is her husband, the one in Stéphane's Brizé's film is Yvette's middle-aged son Alain (played by Vincent Lindon, more tormented, blunt and withdrawn than ever). Both films show that accompanying a terminally ill patient is at once one of the most frightful ordeals a human being has to go through and a unique self-revealing experience. What distinguishes them may be the empathy (or the lack of it) that emerges (or not) from Brizé's and Haneke's respective works. For, if all agree on the high quality of the two films, most of the viewers have been moved by Yvette and Alain Ménard's lot whereas a significant number of those who saw "Amour" thought it too cold and unsympathetic.

    To concentrate on "A Few Hours of Spring" solely, it should be noted that Yvette's dramatic choice is not the only issue examined by the director. In the first half, the question is not even alluded to. In this part of the movie, Stéphane Brizé does in fact what he is a past master at : providing a faithful description of ordinary people in contemporary France. Two persons in a small detached house, a dog and a neighbor are enough for the filmmaker to capture the way modest people (i.e.: most people) live nowadays. Yvette, Alain and their benevolent neighbor Monsieur Lalouette's every move (the instant coffee they drink, Alain taking the dog out, Lalouette giving Yvette the apples of his orchard, a.s.o.) are scrutinized and ring wonderfully true. In the same respect, the words they exchange never give the impression to have been written before being uttered. To complete the picture, the viewer is specified what the characters' jobs are or were, which is not always the case in current cinema: Alain was a trucker but he is now jobless after serving a prison sentence ; the neighbor was one too but is retired now. Likewise, part of the running time is devoted to Alain getting through the Employment Agency and subsequently trying his hand at an unskilled job (in what other mainstream French film can you see the "hero" working in a recyclable sorting plant side by side with a Balck emigrant?). To put it briefly, social reality is depicted in a straight accurate manner in "A Few Hours of Spring" just the way it was in Brizé's former works (from "Le Bleu des villes" to "Mademoiselle Chambon"), which makes the characters all the closer to us. Another feature of Brizé's oeuvre, also present in this film, is his awesome ability to represent non-communication without boring the audience. Many of his characters (Florence Vignon in "Le Bleu des villes", Patrick Chesnais in "Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé", Vincent Lindon in "Mademoiselle Chambon") are loners who are unable to express their feelings and accordingly find it hard to connect with others. In "A Few Hours of Spring", Yvette et Alain join the club, by taking refuge in words left unsaid and unexpressed resentment, which is bound to result in misunderstandings and in occasional violent rows. The same is true when Alain finds requited love in the person of the beautiful and sensitive Clémence : he spoils the whole thing by clamming up as soon as his lover wants to know more about him. As for the main theme, the right of any individual to end their lives when all hope of recovery has vanished, it is presented clearly but without dogmatism or oversimplification. All the options are expressed (notably that of Yvette's cancer specialist, favoring palliative care over assisted suicide) and Brizé solicits the viewer's reflection without manipulating them. And when it comes to Yvette's last moments, the director finds the right tone in filming them, a real exploit in itself. This is actually one of the most pared down (and one of the most moving as a result) agony scenes ever shown on a screen. Uncannily indeed, like Alain himself, you feel appeased in the scene Yvette's death rather than distressed. Things are the way they should be.

    My conclusion will come as no surprise : at once sensitive, thought- provoking and a work of art crafted to perfection, "A Few Hours of Spring" is a milestone you just cannot miss out on.
    helpful•11
    1
    • guy-bellinger
    • Apr 8, 2013

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 19, 2012 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • France
    • Official site
      • Official site (Japan)
    • Language
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Algunas horas de primavera
    • Filming locations
      • Haute-Saône, France
    • Production companies
      • TS Productions
      • Arte France Cinéma
      • F Comme Film
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,900,262
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 48 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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