THE HEDGEHOG

Pepe's View:

The Hedgehog ( Le herisson is the French Title) is a beautifully crafted, filmed, written and performed French movie.  I can only hope that I can capture some of the subtlety and beauty of the film itself in this blog.
Firstly, the acting - the character from the title, Josiane Balasko played to perfection by Renee Michel, is the concierge of an appartment block in Paris.  The appartments are all owned by wealthy Parisians in one of those beautiful old Parisien buildings. Josianne, it is revealed little by little through the movie, has always been a conceirge and as such lives the life expected of her - be ignorant, introverted but efficient. 
Living in the appartment is the young daughter of  a politician (Paloma) who has decided to kill herself on her 12th birthday and has drawn a calendar on the wall,each square representing the days leading to her death.  In these squares she draws black and white patterns representing the important events of that day to her. She is observing life around her and in particular the adult lives which she sees as futile and like living in a gold fish bowl.  There is beautiful use of imagery around this concept - the appartment in which she lives is designed so that each room can be seen from the others and it seems to be so designed that her mother spends her day moving around and around it talking to her plants mindlessly as if she really is a goldfish.  Only her father escapes this bowl on a daily basis  to return at night to the meaningless innane conversation of the family. Paloma reflects on the life of a goldfish seeing that it spends all its life in a bowl except for one day a week when the cleaner moves it to the kitchen sink while she cleans the bowl or it will drown in its own excrement - like Paloma's father perhaps?  Paloma is using an old movie camera of her father's to video her last months and recording the lives of all those around her much to her sister's and mother's irritation.  Paloma is played beautifully by Garance Le Guillermie and it is she who has nicknamed the conceirge "The Hedgehog" because she realises that, like a hedgehog, Josiane has a prickly tough exterior which hides a gentle exquisite creature beneath.
Of course Paloma makes friends with "The Hedgehog" and begins to realise that her suspicion of there being more to the humble conceirge than the prickly exterior would indicate is correct.  When a single Japanese man moves into one of the appartments he also realises that "The Hedgehog" is not what she appears and realises that she is well read and cultured.  He gives her a copy of Anna Karenina by Tolstoy because he had a hunch that she was a fan of Russian authors.  From this beginning a friendship blossoms between the two and we see "The Hedgehog" allow someone else past her hard exterior.
So much is revealed by the silences, looks and especially by the cinematography which although filmed entirely within the appartment building, except for one scene towards the end of the movie, manages to convey the concept of living in a goldfish bowl and needing a place to hide.  "The Hedgehog" finds her place in a room filled with books - a place known only to her - while Paloma finds her place to hide behind the camera ironically looking at everyone else.
The involvement of the Japanese ten-nant into the movie suddenly makes sense of Paloma's black and white patterns on her calendar which are reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy and even the ironwork on the edges of the doors to the complex take on a similar appearance by judicious framing of the shots by the director.
This film is satisfying on so many levels and has so many levels of theme that it is a film that will stay in my mind for many days to come.  I won't spoil the ending but suffice it to say that typical of French cinema it ends satisfactorily if not happily.  As Paloma says - it is not dying that is important but what you are doing at your moment of death. 

My Score: 9/10

Ma's View:

There is not a lot that I can add to Pepe's analysis of this movie;  it was great on so many levels.  It reveals the shallowness of the lives of these rich society people to whom the concierge is virtually invisible, a non-existent person - except when they want something.  Their mindless conversations are contrasted to her tight-lipped quotes from the great Russian authors she reads, just as their pretense at culture is shown up by the truly cultured new Japanese tenant.  Young Paloma, highly intelligent and incisive, can see through the whole sham and concludes that human life has no more meaning than that of a goldfish in a bowl.  Another typically French movie dealing with the big issues!

My Score:  9/10