Tout est pardonné (2007)

Director:

Mia Hansen-Løve

Writer:

Mia Hansen-Løve

Release Date:

26 September 2007 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A father and daughter are reunited some 11 years after the father's drug addiction tore the family apart. |

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Drug Addiction | Hospital | Male Female Relationship | Teenager

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Paul Blain	...	Victor
Marie-Christine Friedrich	...	Annette
Victoire Rousseau	...	Pamela enfant
Constance Rousseau	...	Pamela adolescente
Carole Franck	...	Martine
Olivia Ross	...	Gisèle
Alice Langlois	...	Judith
Pascal Bongard	...	André
Alice Meiringer	...	Karine
Katrin Daliot	...	Agnès
Elena Fischer-Dieskau	...	Nektar
Franz Buchrieser	...	Fritz
Claude Duneton	...	Le grand-père
Patrick Mimoun	...	Dr. Noblinsky
Dominik Castell	...	Le dealer à Vienne
Wieland Amand	...	Zoltan
Luis Lenz Galambos	...	Cousin à Vienne
Elias Knoll	...	Cousin à Vienne
Barbara Schall-Carma	...	La mère d'Annette
Markus Nestroy	...	Léo
Anatole Sternberg	...	Georg
Peter Wimberger	...	Le jeune père au Stadtpark
Marion Lecrivain	...	Amie de Zoltan (as Marion Lécrivain)
Sarah Lepicard	...	Amie de Zoltan (as Sarah Le Picard)
Lionel Dray	...	Ami de Zoltan
Maxime Lancino	...	Un lycéen
Daphné Achouline	...	Une lycéenne
Betty Fréret	...	Une lycéenne
François Buot	...	Le videur du Djoon
Ludo Harley	...	Lou
Antoine Assayas	...	Gaspard
Thévy Laplaud	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Mélina Lajudie	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Angie Lajudie	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Rodolphe Brachet	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Alexandre Paulon	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Billie Blain	...	Enfant en Corrèze
Alexandra Catzeflis	...	Une tante en Corrèze
Hélène Bastide	...	Une tante en Corrèze
Eléonore Rousseau	...	Alix
Gianfranco Poddighe	...	Le père d'Alix

Directed by
Mia Hansen-Løve

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Mia Hansen-Løve

Produced by
Lola Gans	....	associate producer
Philippe Martin	....	producer
Géraldine Michelot	....	associate producer
David Thion	....	producer

Cinematography by
Pascal Auffray

Film Editing by
Marion Monnier

Casting by
Elsa Pharaon

Production Design by
Thierry Poulet
Sophie Reynaud

Costume Design by
Sophie Lifshitz
Eléonore O'Byrne

Makeup Department
Elsa Gräsinger	....	makeup artist
Nathalie Kovalski	....	key makeup artist
Catherine Lobgeois	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Hélène Bastide	....	production manager
Umut Dag	....	trainee unit manager: Austria
Mélanie Gielara	....	unit manager
David Hedrich	....	unit manager: Austria
Monika Lewandowska	....	trainee unit manager
Juliette Mallon	....	post-production supervisor
Elsa Okazaki	....	trainee unit manager: Austria
Jérôme Petament	....	unit production manager (as Jérôme Pétament)
Maeva Ribault	....	assistant unit manager: Limousin
Simon Vautier	....	trainee unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Antonin Fourlon	....	trainee assistant director
Thomas Longuet	....	first assistant director
Juliette Maillard	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Jean-Marc Baglione	....	assistant art director
Régis Marduel	....	property master
Nicolas Poulet	....	assistant art director
Bénédicte Préault	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
Patrick Egreteau	....	foley artist
Olivier Goinard	....	sound mixer
Guillaume Leriche	....	foley engineer
Fanny Martin	....	assistant sound editor
Fred Mays	....	post-synchronization
Matthieu Tartamella	....	sound assistant
Vincent Vatoux	....	sound editor
Vincent Vatoux	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Karine Arlot	....	second assistant camera
Carole Bethuel	....	still photographer (as Carole Béthuel)
Simon Blanchard	....	first assistant camera
Sébastien Fanchault	....	grip (as Sébastien Franchault)
Julien Gallois	....	electrician
Julien Gallois	....	gaffer
Aurélien Landreau	....	electrician
Richard Mercier	....	Steadicam operator
John Morrison	....	Steadicam operator
Mathieu Pasdeloup	....	electrician
Laurent Usse	....	key grip

Casting Department
Veronika Brandt	....	assistant casting: Vienne
Sven Hansen-Løve	....	extras casting
Eva Roth	....	casting: Vienna

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Valérie Perrier	....	costumer

Editorial Department
Benoîte Berthaux	....	assistant editor
David Hedrich	....	post-production assistant
Frederic Jupin	....	digital conformation
Marjolaine Mispelaere	....	colorist

Transportation Department
Bernadette Beaudet	....	driver
Cédric Bédué	....	driver
Daniel Legall	....	driver
Henri Saumon	....	driver

Other crew
Romeo Julien	....	avid conformation
Florence Lemoine	....	production secretary
Benjamin Pasquier	....	production administrator
Clémentine Schaeffer	....	script supervisor

Thanks
Marine Billet	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Les Films Pelléas
• Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) (participation)
• TPS Star (participation)
• Région Ile-de-France (support)
• Région Limousin (support)
• Soficinéma 2 (in association with)
• Programme MEDIA de la Communauté Européenne (in partnership with)

Distributors

• Pyramide Distribution (2007) (France) (theatrical)

Also Known As:

"All Is Forgiven" - USA (literal title)

Runtime:

France:105 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Les Films Pelléas

Scenes from a failed marriage, failed life

This pan-European first feature focuses on people rather than dramatic events and concerns a Frenchman Victor (Paul Blain) married to an Austrian woman, Annette (Christine Friedrich). When we meet Victor and Annette they're living in Austria in close proximity to her large family, and they have a six-year-old daughter, Pamala (Victoire Rousseau). Take one look at Victor and the face says, lazy, hedonistic, dissolute, frustrated, angry--with a smiling, people-pleasing exterior. This is some great casting. Friedrich, on the other hand, simply seems one of those healthy, slightly stolid Nordic moms. Victor is a failed writer. His drug addiction is going to lead to heartbreak, and worse. Half the time she speaks to him in German and he answers in French. They aren't on quite the same wave length.

The couple moves to Paris, where Victor is no happier or more productive. Whatever Annette is doing, he's spending his days dabbling at writing and hanging out and his nights out getting high without Annette's knowing his whereabouts. His moods are not good and he's verbally and physically abusive. Eventually Annette wises up, gets angry herself, and goes off to Vienna for the holidays with Pamala. Victor seizes this opportunity to get further involved with his user girlfriend, Gisele (Olivia Ross), who teaches him to shoot up. Before long in this linear, but choppy narrative she's dead of an overdose. After a while he has a mental and physical breakdown (the time sequence always a bit vague) and winds up in a sanatorium.

An inter-title announces an interval of eleven years. Annette and Pamala are living in Paris again and part of a comfortable bourgeois French family; that is, the new husband is French. Victor is around somewhere too, rehabilitated, looking healthy enough, a bit better dressed, and working at some sort of job as a reader for a publishing house. Pamala of course is now a grownup girl (and played by Constance Rousseau, Victoire's older sister), and she wants to meet her father again after all these years. At first this goes well, with sincere feelings on both sides, and an exchange of letters that are read to us while Pamala is away on summer holiday. For Victor the meeting is hugely important but also a terrible reminder of all he might have done and might have been. It awakens bad memories, and the ultimate outcome is tragic.

The co-authors Hansen-Love and Clementine Schaeffer skip narrative connective tissue in telling their tale, nor do they necessarily include all the key moments to dramatize. Exactly how Victor gets into the sanatorium isn't shown, for instance, nor when he and Annette get divorced, and so on. There is a certain casual elegance in this, a simplicity, a naturalness with setting, a focus on conversation, but at times the progression is simply unclear. There is no effort made whatever to make Annette or Victor look any older in their scenes set over a decade later. Rousseau as the adult Pamala is not impressive; she seems just a conventional bourgeois girl reciting her lines. Annette's new French husband is a good posh bohemian Parisian. Annette has a comfortable job cataloging things at the Musee d'Orsay. All this is casually sketched in.

'All is Forgiven' is a stylishly minimal production, with a spare, striking use of Scottish folk tunes and hand-held camera work. The acting by Blain and Friedrich is convincing. This first film is a sincere and creditable effort that promises quality work to come, but it does not overwhelm.

Part of the "Quinzaine des Realisateurs" (Directors' Fortnight) at Cannes 2007, shown at the semi-rep MK2 Hautefeuille in Paris, October 2007. The series also included 'Avant que j'oublie' and 'Caramel' as well as 'Control', 'Chop Shop', and Araki's 'Smiley Face.'

Presented as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, New York, February 29-March 9, 2008.

(My comment originally written in Paris October 23, 2007.)