Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23629 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-05-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Amazon.com
Live-action films about the very young are rare, and even more rare are such films that work as well as Ponette does, without cloying or pandering. The film stars 4-year old actress Victoire Thivisol as Ponette, who's lost her mother in a car accident. The rest of the film has her dealing with this loss, helped by relatives, but mostly by the other children she knows, and the help is sometimes heartening and sometimes hindering. The core events in the film are nearly all enacted by children, peers of Ponette. Sequenced as they are, they form what can only be termed the mythologies of childhood, using the contrast of childhood and death and the children's take on it to drive Ponette's changing attitudes. The result is seen passing across the face of Victoire Thivisol, one of the most luminous faces since Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Filmed cannily in close-ups, we're always privy to the artless emotions of the young girl. She's not old enough yet to have learned to dissemble. Her direct, unaffected performance (if that's what it is) draws us close in as few films have been able to do. If you're unaffected by this film, you might want to reconsider what kind of organism you'd like to be other than a human being. Victoire Thivisol was named Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival 1996. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews

Ponette
Amazon asks us to rate the DVD, not the film, so here is my assessment. Anyone who is a fan of French film should stop buying DVDs produced by Fox Lorber. "Ponette" is produced by Fox Lorber, and once again the company has demonstrated it knows nothing about cinema as an art form and cares little about exploiting the inherent advantages of the DVD medium.

Originally shot in widescreen format, Fox Lorber has given us "Ponette" in reduced form (1.33 to 1). While many of the film's shots are close-ups, the reduced aspect ratio severely hampers the contrasting visual effect of the wide panoramic shots of the splendid lyonnais countryside.

In addition, Fox Lorber shortchanges foreign-film aficionados and language teachers by allowing no user control of the film's subtitles. Finally, this DVD lacks a chronometer (time remaining, time elapsed) for easy scene/shot retrieval. The "extras" Fox Lorber gives users are not worth mentioning, and were not worth the very tiny effort Fox Lorber made to include them.

In short, "Ponette" is a wonderful film that is definitely worth seeing (try renting it through Facets if your local video store doesn't carry it), but this Fox Lorber-produced DVD is definitely NOT worth spending your money on.

When Fox Lorber decides to start devoting care, effort, and money into its DVDs, then people should reward this through their purchases. Until then, as long as Fox Lorber gives us second-rate products, we should refuse to give them our money.

Excellent, Outstanding, Beautiful
It's hard to find the words to express how this film made me feel (surprisingly I found myself crying just 4 minutes into the movie); but I must declare that it has certainly moved me deeply. I have seen few movies where the performances are as believable as this one. The storyline is simple yet beautiful. The cinematography is perfectly carried out from light tones into the colours of fall/winter. And the ending (while not "loved" by all viewers) is moving and brings a lot of hope to anyone who has ever experience a heartache (or life for that matter). I happened to see "Ponette" at a time when I nearly lost my mom to an illness and it made me realise the importance of keeping the faith and maintaining my heart open . This film has quickly made it into my list of top flicks. I recommend it to all people, even if you are not into "sad" films (I for one was not before this one), You are gonna love the movie and you'll ADORE little Victorie Thivisol. Thank You Amy for recommending me this film.

About belief, magic and coming to terms with grief
This is quite an amazing film; the lead actress is Victoire Thivosol ("Chocolat"--Anouk) who gives an award-winning performance at the tender age of 4 years old. She plays Ponette, the young daughter of a woman killed in an auto accident. Her father, unable to deal well with the loss himself, leaves Ponette at an aunt's and ultimately at a children's school. During the school days and the weekends with her cousins, Ponette deals with the horrendous loss. She seeks her own form of belief, and is bumped around by all the other children, who good-naturedly or not try to share their own beliefs and magic gestures to make sense of the world.

The ending doesn't please everyone but I liked it, especially for the cameo role played by Marie Trintignant. The camera angle is interesting throughout--tight and close and at child-level. We see the world up close and at Ponette's viewpoint, adding to the feeling of being overwhelmed and buffeted by life.

This film is well-deserving of the many awards it received and Victoire Thivisol is nothing short of amazing. Definitely see this one.