Zoé has been immersed in the equestrian world since birth. A great lover of horses, she was literally born in a stable of the stud farm run by her parents, in the Manche department, at the exact moment when their star mare, Belle inivrante, gave birth. Since then, the girl and the foal, Tempête, have maintained a close relationship. Until a serious accident, involving said horse, nails her to a wheelchair. With the help and resilience of her parents, Zoé will have to relearn everything: confidence, ambition, love of life and horses.
A sense of déjà vu? The filmmaker of Montreal origin Christian Duguay is indeed not the first to try to whisper in the ears of horses. But in Stormhe does it with a panache, a sincerity and a total absence of cynicism to which one can only adhere to the approach of Christmas.
The director of Belle and Sebastian. The adventure goes on (2015) andA bag of marbles (2017) revives some of his favorite themes in this new blockbuster family entertainment: solidarity, the determination to overcome obstacles, the consolidation of family ties and the horses, which he also portrayed in the equestrian drama Jappeloup (2013).
His intimate knowledge of equines — he himself was a junior Canadian horse riding champion — allows him to capture scenes of great beauty, which one never tires of even if they are repeated. He multiplies aerial shots and horizontal tracking shots that follow the pace of his runners, and combines the sumptuousness of the English Channel with that of horses galloping on the sand.
Symbols of freedom, mistrust, abandonment to greater than oneself, they first offer a contrast to the confinement that Zoé faces, then come to marry, quietly, the permissions and dreams that she ends up agreeing.
The plot, as predictable as it is touching, avoids pathos by revealing itself above all in the silences: those of a little girl locked in her fear, those of a mother who finds in herself the strength to stay upright to allow her child to get up, that of a father, disconcerted, struggling to find his place in a disrupted intimacy.
The actors, brilliant, are essential to this fluid transmission of the moral and emotional dilemmas which assail them. Mélanie Laurent and Pio Marmaï portray a pair of magnetic parents, whose modesty reveals great inner strength. June Benard, Charlie Paulet and Carmen Kassovitz, who in turn play Zoé, all show great naturalness and establish a credible continuity in the young girl’s journey.
Christian Duguay does not reinvent anything, but he once again poses as the master of the mission he entrusts to himself: to entertain, to amaze, to unite young and old alike in front of a show rich in experiences and emotions. A perfect film to break the hectic pace of the end of year celebrations.