15-year-old Margaux (Clarisse Moussa) wanders the alleys of Alamon with a fixed gaze, her destination a children’s home where she begins her first day of internship today. After passing through the gate, her eyes meet little Juliette (Esin Demircan), the only child sitting there in the open. A moment of silence passes, then Margaux moves on and disappears into the building. The background noise is quite loud, but the director of the home who welcomes Margaux says that today is one of the quieter days.
After being introduced to a few people from the team, having another encounter with a freaking Juliette, and the day drawing to a close, Margaux finally finds herself in the bathroom where the children are brushing their teeth. Margaux stands motionless in the room and obviously tries to avoid the wild goings-on. She is then redeemed by a governess, who presses a small white box with pills into her hand and asks her to give them to Juliette and to make sure that she takes them. When Margaux enters Juliette’s room, she first inspects a terrarium while silently being watched by the girl from her bed.
The next day, the group goes to a large lake. Margaux is alone with little Juliette and while she takes a picture of the beautiful surroundings, Juliette seizes the chance and sneaks away. At the last moment Margaux can still see where the little one has run to and follows her but there comes a loud child’s cry. When she finally reaches the water, she sees Juliette floundering in the middle of the lake and a man who is pulling her out of the water from a small boat under loud protest. The horror is visibly written on Margaux’s face and the man is also not very enthusiastic about his catch. When he notices Margaux, he calls out to her that she should take better care of her little sister, which Juliette promptly acknowledges with a “She’s not my sister”.
The man finally introduces himself as Joël (Marc Oosterhoff), a fisherman. Directly on the shore is a hut where everyone first settles down. Margaux seems to find Joël quite interesting, because it is more or less the first time that one hears from her an exchange of words with a stranger. Then, however, the ways separate, because the two girls must return to the group. On the way, Margaux stops briefly at the lake, hands Juliette her cell phone and goes into the water with her clothes. When she comes out again, she informs Juliette that no one would ask any more questions (because Juliette was still soaking wet).
On one of the following days it goes again on an excursion to the same lake. While the bigger kids are getting ready for a boat trip, Juliette is bored and piling up some stones on the table and Margaux is not in the mood to stay there either. So both girls go off on their own again. Their destination is of course the fishing lodge where they spend a day on the lake together with Joël. Here they learn from Joël that he actually comes from Indonesia and is only here because his mother recently died, he was a diving instructor there and would like to return there. Margaux finds all this very interesting, because living somewhere else seems to please her. As the three continue to talk, they are suddenly interrupted by a loud screech from the island. Joël smiles and tells them that it is the dinosaur of Alamon. With this, he is able to put a smile on the faces of the two girls, something that is rarely seen in either of them.
Of course, the head of the home is not very pleased about this solo effort. For this reason he approaches Margaux and admonishes her that she cannot simply leave with Juliette. He explains to her unmistakably that this child needs clear boundaries because she has already run away several times.
Another day begins and Margaux has brought a small pastry for Juliette from breakfast with her father. Once in the room, however, the girl is busy quickly packing her backpack and says that she has no time because her father is coming now. And while Margaux finally tries to play basketball with other children, Juliette sits on a staircase and waits for her father, but in vain. A pedagogue then tries to talk to the father on the phone and at the same moment Juliette runs through the facility and insults the educators out of sheer desperation. Of course Margaux knows how to distract the child and so this time the three of them walk along a shallow river. Again they hear the loud scream but since neither Margaux nor Juliette believe in the number with the dinosaur, Joël digs out an Indonesian anecdote. The scream comes from the herons and these birds carry according to a legend the soul of the deceased in itself. Juliette is silent for a moment, looks serious and then tells that maybe it is her mother, because she died.
With her renewed excursion, Margaux has finally ruined it for herself, however, and the director of the home unceremoniously sends her out the door. When she passes on this news to Juliette, she is of course anything but pleased. A few days later, on the evening of Switzerland’s national holiday, Margaux receives a call from the home asking if Juliette is with her.
Conclusion:
Because of a personal story that happened kind of similar in small parts (which is why I ended up becoming an educator), I could relate to the story of this film pretty well.
It was nice to see how the actually very closed Margaux slowly blossomed in the presence of Juliette and how two people found each other who almost share a similar life story. And you could also sympathize well with how she is looking for a change in her life, even if she is not quite clear what is the best way here. As well as at an age of 15?
The only criticism I can give the film is purely technical, but otherwise the story would not have worked. I can’t imagine that an educational institution would let a trainee go completely unprepared for a problematic child and then let her leave unaccompanied. That would be grossly negligent and not the fault of the intern.
Actors:
Clarisse Moussa (Margaux)
Esin Demircan (Juliette)
Marc Oosterhoff (Joël)
Adèle Vandroth (Adèle)
Pierre Mifsud (Philippe)
Mélanie Doutey (Carole)
Filipe Vargas (Father)
Maxime Gorbatchevsky (Stéphane)
Théo Rossi (Rick)
Hadrien Motta (Tiago)
Elias Alves (Tim)
Maël Ney (Kleden)
Frédéric Giavina (Lio)
Director:
Jenna Hasse
More about the movie:
https://www.berlinale.de/en/2023/programme/202307686.html
Trailer / film clip:
