LA FAULTE A FIDEL means Blame it on Fidel (Castro)
The era of late sixties and early seventies saw great upheaval in the world - Black revolution in USA, Israel-Palestine conflict - the Gypsy movement, Liberation movement, The Beatles... and French uprising supporting communism.
There are many movies made on that theme, but presenting it from the perspective of a 9 year old child gives a unique perspective to the whole theme and dimension to the way we look at emerging new generation in the context of revolution.
A very innocent 9 year old Anna (Nina-Kervel-Bay) is happy-go-lucky, playful, free and curious - living with her parents and younger brother when the radical activism bug infects her parents to support communism, liberalism, feminism, protests, rallies, human rights etc. This turns the life of Anna up-side-down and presents to her a world that snatches away her happiness and innocence.
There are no easy answers found here, because all of us want to do good and show that we too want to save the world - but the movie stands and presents to us - the gory reminder of what this obsession of saving humanity can do to one's true self and innocence - by just getting lost in going with the flow of events around us.
In the end, Anna has lost all her innocence, and missed her childhood. For what?
Since 1960-70's nothing much have changed for the betterment of the world - except there is more destruction, exploitation, farce, faking, cheating, mental disorders, blind chase for success... and much more
This movie is based on an Italian Novel written by Domitilla Calama and collaboratively made as a French-Italian production
Nina Kervel Bay as 9 year old Anna carries the whole movie on her fragile shoulders brilliantly - never missing an emotion - showing despair, anger, anxiety and vulnerability with what is going around her and in the end accepting and imbibing those ideals with much frustration.
She rebels against all these but is made to absorb the LIBERATION IDEA forced and thrashed in her mind by BIG TALKERS who want to become SAVIORS.
The multi-talented Julie Gavras (Actress, Writer, Cinematographer, Editor, Sound recordist, etc - who has worked in many departments of movie-making)- debuts with this feature film. Julie has taken utmost care in presenting the movie through the child's perspective by keeping the camera much lower, giving us the first hand view of what a child (we were too) see the grown up world.
I think what Anna is subjected to as a child - most older people in the world are subjected to the same bombarding of issues and ideas around liberation, freedom, rights etc.. That is where and when humans lose their goodness, innocence and love of being natural and imbibe in them something they are not and are forced to pretend. Just because everyone around us talks of it - we think that is the way to go.
This movie opens up little awareness in us of looking at life around us with a different lens and perspective- more as a witness rather than being selfishly clever in going by the flow. In a dialogue the father says to Anna "This is for your own good" and we turn our head in total disagreement.
It is a wonderful psychological and political film which shows the faulty lines when a children / adults starts thinking radical and are traumatized by the horrid world we live in.
I would go with 7.25 out of 10
Review of La faute à Fidel!
