IN A POOR and parentless apartment shadowed by the Swiss Alps, Simon is a 12-year-old boy who has taken to stealing people’s gear from a nearby ski resort and pawning it in order to provide for his unmotivated and irresponsible older sister Louise.
MUCH LIKE HER previous film »Home«, which showed a more discordant view of the picture perfect Swiss utopia, director Ursula Meier manages to create not only an intriguing and often ironic duality between the characters’ uneven levels of immaturity, but also a unique aesthetic juxtaposition between the rich, elegant alpine peaks and the sludgy lowland realism that the siblings reside in.
HOWEVER, DESPITE THE light breeze of socio-realism that blows across the surface, Meier is keen to focus more on the inner struggle of Simon as a young boy thrust into a complex relationship with his sister/surrogate mother, clinging to flawed perceptions of what an adult is, whilst simultaneously balancing on the edge of his childhood identity.
LEWIS PAYNE
- Title
- Sister
- Director
- Ursula Meier
- Country
- France, Switzerland
- Length
- 100 min
- Festival
- 2012
- Section
- Competition
- Language
- French
- Subtitle
- Swedish
- Premiere status
- Nordic Premiere
- Production year
- 2012
- Original title
- L'enfant d'en haut
- Cast
- Kacey Mottet Klein, Léa Seydoux, Martin Compston, Gillian Anderson, Jean-Francois Stévenin, Yann Trégouet, Gabin Lefebvre, Magne-Håvard Brekke
- Producer
- Ruth Waldburger, Jean-Marie Gindraux, Denis Freyd, André Bouvard
- Script
- Antoine Jaccoud, Ursula Meier
- Music
- John Parish
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