Philippe Katerine and Léa Drucker tear each other apart under the eyes of “Petite Solange” in a sensitive portrait

Second film by young director Axelle Ropert, Little Solange puts at the heart of its subject a painful initiation that will open a child to adulthood. On the screens Wednesday February 2, with Léa Drucker and Philippe Katerine, the film claims modesty, discretion, and an approach by small touches of the feelings of a child who bumps into the world of adults. Assets which have earned him the Jean Vigo 2021 Prize which encourages young filmmakers to persevere in the originality revealed in their film.

At 13, Solange is a fulfilled teenager and a model student, very attached to her parents and her brother, a student in the United States, back for the holidays. She finds that her father and mother are arguing more and more and that their love is crumbling. His grades suffer, his behavior relaxes and his feelings harden. So love wouldn’t be eternal?

Filmed at child height, Little Solange portrays a teenager affected by a collapsing world. Between the family home where life is falling apart, the school where she loses control, the music store where her father got closer to his collaborator, Solange learns about life. We think of François Truffaut who filmed a lot of childhood and of The Misunderstood by Luigi Comencini, whose poster can be seen in a plan.

Axelle Ropert films Solange (the young Jade Springer) up close, as do Léa Drucker and Philippe Katerine. But the arguments are never frontal, and always seen by the child who stumbles upon them by chance, in the background, without his parents realizing it. They do not reveal their disagreement to him, while his eldest, more mature, is aware. “So I’m the only one who doesn’t know” she will say to her brother, which will amplify her sadness until a decision that will make her lose her innocence.

Nice film treated with delicacy, Little Solange, in spite of small reservations on the direction of actors, touches right in the transcription of the feelings. We identify with the inner drama of the child, with an invading melancholy that translates the passage from one world to another.

Kind : Drama
Director: Axelle Ropert
Actors : Léa Drucker, Philippe Katerine, Grégoire Montana-Haroche, Chloé Astor, Joanna Grudzinska
Country : France
Duration : 1h25
Exit : February 2, 2022
Distributer : High and Short

Summary: