T Y I can't believe this came out 13 years ago. I feel like I just read the raves about the central performance like... four years ago. I've been meaning to see it. The movie concerns itself with how a four year old deals with the death of her mother. As anyone can tell you, the main child performance is excellent and remarkable. As hard as it is for an adult to come to terms with death, it must be heartbreaking to watch your child attempt to deal with it. But the movie has some big problems. I was surprised that after the early scenes which have at most one or two other actors in them, that adults go missing for the majority of the film. Unfortunately, this leaves the movie to present a certain type of "all children" scene over and over. For about ninety-five percent of its running time, toddling children are shown playing and hopelessly trying to make sense of death. It stays in that place for just too long. 40 minutes of the kids trying to comprehend super-natural rules for the dead, feels like an hour and a half. The kids can offer no insight; just verisimilitude, a lonely conceit that requires some support. For most of its length, Ponette is crying or confused. It just doesn't develop. I wish I could have seen Ponette interact with adults around her, in even the most rudimentary plot. Who are these awful parents who leave a toddler to fend for herself in wrestling with death?Wherever the movie goes, there is no shaking its belief that the answer to its dramatic problem is more talking. Having chosen such a small scale to encounter this material, it's not a surprise when the movie has no ending. It culminates in a gratuitous, conventional and sentimental wish-fulfillment scene filmed literally; it is not a fantasy as some insist, because a child's mind cannot manufacture the details we witness of her mothers return. It's just cheap. Both Spirit of the Beehive and The 400 Blows go more interesting places with material concerning childhood.

dbdumonteil It's evident and it deserves to be mentioned. When Jacques Doillon films children (un Sac De Billes, 1975) or teenagers (la Drôlesse, 1979, Le Petit Criminel, 1990), it's what he does best and especially when he pores over the dark sides of childhood and adolescence like rejection, misunderstanding, lack of love or the death of dear close relatives. "Ponette" revolves around the latest of these things. This cute 4 year old little girl lost her mother (Marie Trintignant,a sinister omen for her tragic fate some years later) and is persuaded she will see her again. So, she embarks on a long waiting which makes her father (Xavier Beauvois) and the grown-ups incensed. Her aunt (Claire Nebout) tries to provide her solace with the help of religious creeds but does she really believe in them? At the start of a new school year, she is sent at boarding school with her cousins and in a small church, asks God to talk to her mother. Then, in a graveyard in front of her mother's grave, a miracle happens.The first thing that springs to mind after the viewing is that you would like to hail Doillon for the remarkable work he has provided with the children. He said that he listened many conversations between children for months before rewriting them in dialogs and that's the main reason why his film has a larger than life vibe. Sometimes, you even wonder if you don't watch a documentary. Working with children on a film set is very hard to do but it's evident here that Doillon did everything possible to prepare his very young actors mentally to his cinematographic demands. So, little Victoire Thivisol and her partners really live their texts and it's the world perceived with children's eyes that is one of the real motors of the film.In another extent, Doillon walks away with the honors of a tricky topic: how can the life of a beloved human being can be perceived by her children? The Scottish Peter Mullan will bring his own answer in his moody "Orphans" (1997) and here, Ponette thinks she will see her mother again because she is seduced by the religious tenets her aunt tells to her. And when her mother appears beside her in the graveyard, it's a real foray into the fantastic without the unpleasant impression of a break in tone because the little girl is the only one to experiment this. During their short moment together her mother tells her: "I won't be able to stay with you but before I definitely leave, promise me one thing: don't complain, savor life as much as you can". We aren't very far from one of the key lines in John Frankenheimer's "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962): "the first duty of life is to live" and it's the message Doillon left in his work. Ponette is bound to have understood the lesson and to follow this piece of advice. Perhaps you will keep it in your heart too after the viewing.So, from a murky starting point, Doillon manages to create a piece of work with a startling realism and an uplifting message. If you're sensitive to these features, "Ponette" will leave you elated. Highly recommended and I would advise you to watch it several times because very young children are often difficult to decipher in their lines. So, be patient and you will be rewarded.

bbsantx This is by far one of the best foreign films I have ever seen.If you love foreign films and children, please watch this film.This may be a spoiler. This baby's reaction to death and her reconciliation of it is astounding. I have to wonder how they got her to act the part.That spitting scene on top of the car still haunts me.Kudos to the writers and especially to the little girl who made it so real.A solid 10.bb

diatom It is astonishing how well this movie captures the interior lives of young children. Viewers are reminded of how literal reality is to them - the abstract ideas that we adults talk about so freely have a very different meaning to children. It is hard for four-year-old Ponette to distinguish reality from fantasy. When she says that she wants to talk to her mom, she really means that she wants to talk to her, in person. We know this is impossible, but Ponette sees possibilities in the false hope given her by her aunt's explanations about Jesus and heaven and talking to God. None of the adults who are taking care of her begin to address her sorrows, fears and hopes adequately. Her father is too self-absorbed, and probably also too sad. The aunt and the woman at her school can explain things only in religious terms. I found myself longing for some grown-up to sit down with Ponette and listen to her, take her seriously. The children with whom she interacts offer a variety of solutions to her problem, but they also ultimately do not help. Towards the end of the film, Ponette finally escapes from the confines of her friends, her school, her teachers and her parent. She confronts her missing mother as directly as she can - she goes to her grave, freshly dug in the hillside. It is only when Ponette can see for herself that there is no longer any mommy, that she is silent, sealed away in the earth, that she can begin the long painful process of adjusting to her loss.I think that's why she is "allowed" finally to speak with her - she works out the things she needs to hear from her mother, and makes them happen as she wishes. At last, she achieves a bit of relief from her struggle to understand what happened. For the viewer, by the time Ponette flees to the cemetery, we too have experienced the profound silence of the dead, and have revisited all the bargaining, the longing, and the fantasies that even grown-ups entertain when someone they love dies. I highly recommend this movie.