:
Nina Kervel,
Nina Kervel,
Julie Depardieu,
more...
:
Julie Gavras,
Julie Gavras
see all cast/crew...
: Koch Lorber Films
: Drama, Foreign, France, Coming of Age
: 95 min.
: French
: English
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Her wealthy parents suddenly motivated to take an overtly political stance as massive political and economical change sweeps through France, the daughter of a wealthy Spanish lawyer and a successful French journalist attempts to make sense of her once-stable world as everything she though she ever knew is turned upside down. Anna (Nina Kervel) is a nine year-old Catholic schoolgirl who excels in catechism class and knows how to hold a knife and fork while cutting her fruit. Her father Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) comes from a prominent Spanish family and her mother Marie (Julie Depardieu) is a well-known writer for a popular French women's magazine. Also sharing the family's sprawling home is Anna's younger brother Francois (Benjamin Feuillet). When the increasing militancy of Fernando's communist sister begins to pose a threat to the family, the concerned brother stealthily travels to Spain and successfully smuggles his sister back into France. Full indoctrinated in the belief that all communists are bad, Anna struggles to understand why, after returning from a trip to Latin America, her parents seem to have developed a strong social conscience. Meanwhile, as the thunderous footsteps of eager revolutionaries begin to echo through the hallways and mom begins to prepare a book protesting the illegality of abortion, Anna does her best to adapt to the strange new environment. The fiction feature debut of filmmaker Julie Gavras (daughter of celebrated filmmaker Costas), Blame it on Fidel playfully covers the year in which the death of Charles De Gaulle, the election of Salvador Allende, and a landmark petition signed by 300 French women who admitting to undergoing illegal abortions altered the way many Europeans viewed the world. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
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| A real gem.
by underdog
December 27, 2008 - 9:17 PM PST
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| One of 07's better and more overlooked films still holds up for me. The lead performance by the young actress is superb and the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent as well, but it's Julie Gavras sensitive direction and storytelling, from a child's POV, that really makes this a near-classic. Never gets too didactic or critical, it just is what it is -- the parents behave selfishly at times, but as they admit, they make mistakes, everyone does. The film beautifully captures the energy and upheaval of the early 70s on a grander scale and on a smaller scale the angst of coming into one's own. Empathetic, often even quite funny, and never less than fully human, Blame It on Fidel is a delight. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.43)
7 Votes
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