Blame it on Fidel (2006)

This is an exciting film from Julie Gavras, the daughter of Oscar winning writer/director Costa-Gavras (Missing, Z). The effect of a rise in consciousness on the part of Anna's (Nina Kervel-Bey) parents, played by Julie Depardieu and Stefano Accorsi on the family is examined with humor.

Giving up her comfortable bourgeois life so her parents could fight for social justice against fascists like Franco was a real adjustment for Anna. It didn't help that her nanny filled her head with nonsense, but her sacking solved that problem.

It was a beautiful tale of a girl growing up to think, and to think about someone other than herself. She learned about solidarity and freedom and the pain of escaping one's past.

This little girl has a real future in film.

Fmovies: What impressed me most about this film was how you always know what Anna is feeling. This is partly because of the wonderfully expressive actress playing the part, and partly because it is easy to recall how we felt about things as children and recognize how we would react to the clearly drawn situations of the film. It is also remarkable because while most French movies let you know what characters think simply by having them talk endlessly, Anna keeps her words short and to the point and the adults around her never seem to explain things as much as they ought to.

It is interesting to see how people here respond to the film. One review described it as a movie about adults balancing child raising with world saving, which is certainly a part of the film but to me wouldn't seem to be the focus. Someone else saw the film as an example of how activists can be bad parents.

But really, this film is so focused on Anna that I tended to feel whatever she was feeling, and as her feelings and understand evolved during the film, mind did as well. The movie feels very balanced, showing everyone's strengths and weaknesses, kindnesses and cruelties, honor and stupidity, and it feels very authentic; I don't know if this is fiction, a memoir or somewhere in between, but it feels very realistic and believable.

This is a quiet, thoughtful movie and it took me a while to get into it, perhaps simply because I approach French movies with a certain amount of suspicion, which is why I gave it a 7 instead of an 8. I became more and more drawn in as I watched, and found the final scenes especially touching. It's a lovely little film.

Wonderful movie that clears out your mind and leaves you purified when feeling so dirty. Wonderful little girl! Wonderful little boy! So amazed by how they are that I don't feel like saying more on the movie in general. Anna de la Mesa is so real. All that phases she goes through and all the complication of her mind are beautifully harmonized with the politics. It's not a story of a changing family (life); it's rather the display of a huge load on the shoulders of a little girl. It's worth it; watch it.

(By the way just because I watched the two in a row; I must say that "La Faute à Fidel" is much more effective than "Persepolis" in order of viewing the world from a growing child's point-of-view. Good directing there by Julie Gavras.)

Blame it on Fidel fmovies. If you remember being a child confused about the 'grown ups' around you, then this film is worth watching. I thought it was going to be a heavy dark film - and it might be on one level - but it's not at all on the other, mainly because it is about seeing the ('grown up') world from a child's point of view. It reminded me a bit of Pan's Labyrinth in that way, i.e. the way there is an 'adults world' and a 'child's world', although Pan's Labyrinth focuses more on childhood escapism, but 'Blame in Fidel' is more about childhood realism. That is to say this film focuses, in a really lovely accurate way, on a child struggling to understand the real world around them, especially when the adults around her don't tell her the full story. There is no fantasy here. It's all very real. Anna clearly wants to understand what's going on. She hears snippets of conversations and tries to put it all together, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly. Definitely worth a watch!

Hard social facts are faced from the perspective of a little and very smart and inquiring child, although there's no violent scene on the movie the political tension is well expressed by the parents and friends, to the very confussion of the girl.. i don't remember her name, but her performance is outstanding, its very interesting how she interchange her wasys from childish feelings and behavour to thoughtful and even worried attitudes, being all the time very credible, the picture has a sad background, but the bright of the girl as the protagonist gives the element of hope, being the picture not sad but quite interesting and rich, with a lot of joyful funny moments. I really recommend this great movie.

This debut film by Julie Gavras, daughter of famed Greek-born director Costa-Gavras (e.g., Z, 1969), was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. In addition to directing, Julie Gavras also collaborated with Arnaud Cathrine on the script which they adapted from a novel by Italian novelist Domitilla Calamai. What is striking about the story is the way it reconstructs how girls become social, how they learn about their world, how they question it, and how they reconcile the contradictions, and how they grow up.

Doing the growing up is nine-year-old Anna de la Mesa, played with fidelity, wit, and skill beyond her years by Nina Kervel-Bey. She is bourgeois to the core, following the lead of her maternal grandparents, who own a vineyard in Bordeaux, and her favorite nanny and housekeeper who lost everything to the Communists when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. Her parents, however, are infatuated with the Left, especially with the rise of Allende to power in Chile. The year is 1970-71.

Anna loves their house and garden and going to Catholic school. She is proper and sensible. When they lose their house, and have to let the nanny go, and end up renting an apartment in Paris, Anna is upset and demands to know why things have changed. When it appears that they don't have as much money, Anna begins turning off the lights and turning down the heat to save money. When they want her to transfer to the public school, she demurs and a compromise is made: she can continue to go to Catholic school but she is not allowed to take Bible studies. So when that time of the day comes, she has to stand up and go outside the classroom door and wait.

But Anna is strong emotionally and intellectually. She questions everything and is not self-conscious about being singled out. The other girls may laugh, but when she gets into a fight with one of them, she manages to win her over afterwards so that they are friends, even though their parents are not.

There is in the background the political disputes between the Right and the Left, between parents who change the subject when the question how babies are made is brought up, and those who tell the truth, in short between the bourgeois and the bohemian. One gets the sense that Gavras and Anna are wiser than the disputants, and that there is something to appreciate in both ways of life.

It is impossible not to identify with little Anna, partially because she herself is so fair, and partially because it is such a thrill to see the psychology of the socialization process displayed so well and true in a movie, but also because Nina Kervel-Bey is such a powerful little actress who was so wondrously directed by Julie Gavras. This is one of the best performances by a preteen actor that I have ever seen. Kervel-Bey simply dominates the film and commands the screen.

Will Anna shed her petite bourgeois ways and embrace the politics of her parents? I highly recommend that you see this film and find out.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)