The Cinematheque

Imported 35mm Print

“Sublime … Denis’s warmest, most radiant work.”

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

After the intoxicating interiority of L’intrus, Denis fashioned a tender and profoundly moving father-daughter drama in tribute to Yasujirō Ozu, one of her formative cinematic influences. Borrowing beats from the Japanese master’s 1949 opus Late Spring, Denis’s subtle, lyrical film centres on Lionel (Denis staple Alex Descas), a widowed train conductor, and his dutiful adult daughter Joséphine (Mati Diop). The pair share an affectionate but insular domesticity in a no-frills apartment on the outskirts of Paris. When upstairs neighbour and moody cat-dad Noé (Grégoire Colin, of Beau travail) acts on his long-held affections for Joséphine, Lionel comes to recognize that his daughter must build a life, and nurture a love, independent of him. As Denis is blessedly wont to do, exposition is almost entirely excised in favour of tone and visual grace. Print courtesy of Institut Français, thanks to the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.