A woman is forced to tell her son the truth about his father, a famous lawyer for the families of victims of a child molester.
In A silence, Joachim Lafosse depicts a bourgeois family, constantly spied on by the media, on the verge of breaking up. We first meet Astrid Schaar (Emmanuelle Devos, masterful), the mother. At the police station, we try to get him to say what would have pushed Raphaël (Matthieu Galloux, prodigious newcomer), adopted son, to attack his father, François (Daniel Auteuil, at the top of his art), brilliant and famous lawyer representing the families of victims of a child sex offender.
The story then shifts to some time earlier. Caroline (Louise Chevillotte), the eldest daughter, urges her mother to reveal the truth about her father to Raphaël before Pierre (Damien Bonnard), Astrid’s brother, does so. Soon, Astrid, who has been crumbling under the weight of silence for 30 years, will have to choose her side. “What matters most? What people think or what we built? What matters is us,” François told him.
As he had done for the upsetting to lose reason (2012), where he dealt with a quintuple infanticide, Joachim Lafosse (Bare property, The restless) was inspired by a news item that made the headlines in 2007 for his tenth feature film. Former lawyer for the families of Marc Dutroux’s victims, Victor Hissel had been indicted for possession of child pornography photos. Two years later, his son tried to kill him.
Moving away from the naturalistic social painting to which he is generally faithful, the Belgian filmmaker has this time taken the path of the psychological thriller. In collusion with the director of photography Jean-François Hensgens, a faithful ally since to lose reasonthe director plays with light and shadow to create a falsely warm and comforting atmosphere, which will gradually become oppressive and icy.
Written with the collaboration of six screenwriters, including author Sarah Chiche, Joachim Lafosse’s screenplay brilliantly explores the inevitable crumbling of family ties maintained by the force of lies, unsaid words and opaque silences. However, halfway through, when almost all the family secrets have been revealed, the dialogues become redundant and the characters evasive.
Certainly, as the noose tightens around the Schaars, Lafosse unvarnishedly denounces the perfidy of the bourgeois couple, ready to do anything to keep up appearances and not lose their privileges, without a thought for the victims. While it cruelly exposes the impact of the father’s wrongdoing on his family members, it leaves several questions unanswered. Not on the nature of the actions, but on what pushed this man to commit them.
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Drama
A silence
Joachim Lafosse
Emmanuelle Devos, Daniel Auteuil, Matthieu Galloux
1:39 a.m.