{"id":165144,"date":"2025-09-24T02:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165144\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T02:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:18:08","slug":"joachim-lafosses-tender-family-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165144\/","title":{"rendered":"Joachim Lafosse’s Tender Family Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAccording to Belgian director Joachim Lafosse, his latest, Six Days in Spring (Six jours ce printemps-l\u00e0), was inspired<\/a> by a memorable break from his own childhood in which he, his brother and their mother effectively squatted at the fancy second home owned by his father\u2019s parents. The personal nature of that inspiration may explain the film\u2019s wistful tenderness and low-key atmosphere. <\/p>\n

\n\tSure, this quiet drama is spiked by a certain amount of suspense over whether the family at its center will get caught. But the dramatic tension hums on a much mellower frequency compared to Lafosse\u2019s usually higher-pitched families-in-crisis stories (see A Silence, Our Children, The Restless), making this practically a light comedy by his standards.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSix Days in Spring\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tAn anxious, intimate, sun-dappled tale.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: San Sebastian Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Eye Ha\u00efdara, Jules Waring, Leonis Pinero M\u00fcller, Teodor Pinero M\u00fcller, Emmanuelle Devos, Damien Bonnard
Director: Joachim Lafosse
Screenwriters: Joachim Lafosse, Chlo\u00e9 Duponchelle, Paul Isma\u00ebl
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 32 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat shift in tone doesn\u2019t entirely pay off. The elliptical storytelling in Lafosse\u2019s script (written in collaboration with Chlo\u00e9 Duponchelle and Paul Isma\u00ebl) arguably holds back too much information, compelling the viewer to wonder why they should invest in the characters\u2019 fates. At least the cast are likable enough to coax empathy \u2014 particularly lead Eye Ha\u00efdara, whose recently single mother, Sana, is struggling to give her pre-adolescent twins Raph and Tom (played, respectively, by real-life siblings Leonis Pinero M\u00fcller and Teodor Pinero M\u00fcller) a normal family vacay, just like they used to have. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut there is a price to be paid, even if the house itself is free. Her decision to take something that\u2019s technically not hers erodes the trust between herself and her boys, especially once it comes out that Jules (Jules Waring), the boys\u2019 former soccer coach, has come along as Sana\u2019s secret lover.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen we first meet her, Sana is working two jobs, one in an office by day, followed by waitressing shifts at night. The fact that the kids get themselves ready for school in the morning and then sit quietly in the restaurant doing their homework may be a sign of how well Sana has raised them, even if they still have all the boisterous energy you expect from 10-year-olds. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the trio pile into Sana\u2019s Renault minivan for an Easter vacation, stopping to pick up Jules on the way, they find out that there won\u2019t be enough room at his family\u2019s house. They\u2019ll have to stay in a hotel, which Jules offers to pay for. Too proud to accept his hospitality but also broke, Sana finally agrees to the kids\u2019 suggestion that they stay at their grandparents\u2019 place in St. Tropez. She knows they won\u2019t be there, she has a key and she already knows all the PIN codes needed to gain access to the private estate. Where\u2019s the harm?<\/p>\n

\n\tEven so, once they arrive following an all-night drive, Sana is squirrelly about being spotted by the neighbors. Knowing her former father-in-law checks the meters, she insists they don\u2019t use any electricity while there and only light fires in the hearth to stay warm instead of turning on the heating. The house\u2019s swimming pool is a petri dish full of algae, so they visit the private beach accessible only to residents. But after one of the locals recognizes Sana and the boys, they stick to public beaches, while she flinches every time she sees someone who might know her.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a phone call with her ex-husband, she tells him she and the children are in Lyons visiting a friend. The kids, bless their hearts, agree never to reveal to their dad where they\u2019ve been. But soon, Sana\u2019s insistence that they minimize the use of cellphones and instead spend their evenings playing card games with her and Jules starts to wear thin. In one of the film\u2019s tautest sequences, they\u2019re caught swimming in a neighbor\u2019s pool by a caretaker (Damien Bonnard), and Sana must decide whether to pay off the man to keep his silence.<\/p>\n

\n\tDP and regular Lafosse collaborator Jean-Francois Hensgens, shooting in CinemaScope, mostly keeps the camera up close and personal with the ensemble, creating a sense of claustrophobia even when the occasional wide shot or view over the balcony serves as a reminder of the spectacular local scenery. This posh enclave, lushly appointed with palm trees and expensive upholstery and welcoming only to the propertied class, is exactly the kind of place J. G. Ballard had in mind when he wrote his dystopian novel Super-Cannes. Sana could come there only when she was married to one of neighborhood\u2019s scions, whom we never see.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an interesting choice that we never learn whether the parents-in-law or ex-husband are Black like Sana and her sons. None of the neighbors they meet, including nosy Josiane (Lafosse regular Emmanuelle Devos), is ever so gauche as to mention race, and everyone nominally greets the family with warmth. Nevertheless, there\u2019s a constant sense that no one ever forgets the differences in class at play here, even amongst the working-class people who live in the town year-round and service the wealthy. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut Lafosse doesn\u2019t linger on the sociology of the situation and instead emphasizes how secrets and lies fray this fragile family\u2019s cohesion. It\u2019s only once everything is out in the open, and the worst has happened, that real joy can be experienced. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant, in every sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to Belgian director Joachim Lafosse, his latest, Six Days in Spring (Six jours ce printemps-l\u00e0), was inspired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337,83017],"class_list":["post-165144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-san-sebastian-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}