REVIEWS
Declaration Of War CRITICS’ WEEK
Fr. 2011. 100mins Director Valérie Donzelli Production company Rectangle Productions International sales Wild Bunch,
www.wildbunch.biz Producer Edouard Weil Screenplay Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaim Cinematography Sébastien Buchmann Production designer Gaelle Usandivaras Editor Pauline Gaillard Main cast Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaim, César Desseix, Gabriel Elkaim
REVIEWED BY LEE MARSHALL
It sounds like a crazy risk: to make a film about a young couple whose baby is diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumour — and to make it funny and romantic, with musical interludes, so that it plays like something Jacques Demy and Francois Truffaut might have cooked up together. But actor-director Valérie Donzelli’s second film after the micro-budget romantic comedy The Queen Of Hearts is a joy to watch. Shot with heart-on-sleeve enthusiasm and running on
instinct, Declaration Of War (La Guerre Est Déclarée) has its uneven moments, but few viewers will fail to be moved and charmed by the tale of a couple energised and (at least briefly) united by every parent’s worst nightmare. French to the marrow in its settings, songs, cute lovers and
peppy insouciance, Declaration Of War is nevertheless a life- enhancing title with universal audience appeal — though with its tough subject matter, its indie feel and the language barrier, its most obvious home outside of France is urban arthouse cin- emas. The film opened Critics’ Week, and its rapturous recep- tion bodes well for its August 31 national release. By then, informed French cinema-goers will probably have
read or heard the story is partly autobiographical, based on the real-life illness of the son Donzelli and her co-star and co-writer Jérémie Elkaim had together. It is a classic coup de foudre: they run off together, literally,
jogging through Paris in a snappily edited montage sequence, setting a breakneck pace which hardly lets up until the 90-minute mark. Costumes, jaunty music and the smiling per- formances of the two leads seem to set the comic-romantic tone, but things turn dark when the couple’s baby, Adam, starts vom- iting “spectacularly”, as his father tells the doctors — and soon, after the CT and MRI scans come through, they are told he has a brain tumour. It is their determination to fight back with good humour and
Cineci t tà Luce at Cannes 2011: I tal ian Pavi l ion I n t e r n a t i o n a l V i l l a g e – S t a n d 1 3 2
an energy which comes out physically in their movement across France in search of treatment and within each shot, that gives Declaration Of War its verve and drive. Solidarity and support comes from family, friends and a cast of public-hospital doctors and nurses (some played by actors, others for real) who for once are cast almost universally as the good guys. We are gunning for the protagonists so much that we even
take on board a split-screen musical number, like something cheesy Serge Gainsbourg might have done in the mid-seventies, in which they declare their love. Other retro effects include iris fades, slow-mo sequences and third-party voiceovers which fast-forward us through the narrative. The soundtrack is equally eclectic, ranging from Vivaldi and Offenbach to Ennio Morri- cone and Laurie Anderson: but such is the brio of this heart- warming film that the free-ranging musical mix never jars.
n 22 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 15, 2011
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