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I wish more people understood this simple fact!
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The Americans
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The films of Mia Hansen-Løve: ‘Tout est pardonné’ and ‘Le père de mes enfants’
Tout est pardonné (eng: All is Forgiven)
Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
Written by Mia Hansen-Løve
France, 2007
Watching with a critical eye, one will find Mia Hansen-Løve’s debut feature, Tout est pardonné, curiously out of focus; as in, it strongly lacks any. Although well-meaning and decorous, Tout est pardonné has too many points of interest that dull the overall impact of the film, making it less affecting than it should’ve been.
The story opens up in Vienna where Victor (Paul Blain), a shiftless French writer, is married to Annette (Marie-Christine Friedrich), his Austrian wife. Together, they have a six-year-old daughter named Pamela (Victoire Rousseau).
Unable to really communicate with either of them, especially Annette, Victor turns to drugs and is slowly consumed with an addiction, and at first, this seems to be the film’s raison d’être. We’re supposed to witness the spiraling effects of his drug habit and how it ultimately wrecks his home life, but Ms. Hansen-Løve chooses to focus more on the latter than the former.
