PONETTE

The French film PONETTE, directed by Alain Sarde, is a wrenching tear-jerker that dares to explore universal human questions about God and His role in our lives through the eyes of a four-year-old. Victoire Thivisol, aged four, plays the title character and has already won the Best Actress Award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. Her accolades are well-deserved, since her performance is amazing.

The story opens with Ponette sucking her thumb as it protrudes from a cast binding her wrist. Her arm has been injured in a car accident that claimed her mother’s life. Her young, immature father is overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for his daughter, so he takes her to live with her aunt and two young cousins, Delphine and Mathias. Ponette’s relatives and everyone else surrounding her commence to pummel the poor child with their wildly divergent versions of the “truth” about death, God and the afterlife. Her aunt offers her some Christian truths. The remainder of the film chronicles Ponette’s search, limited, of course, by her four-year-old mind, for the reality about these issues.

The differing philosophies and outlooks which bombard Ponette thoroughly confuse her. Much of the wisdom her compatriots impart is completely nonsensical. Her classmates, for example, solemnly assure her that she can raise the dead by taking magic Smarties to the cemetery. “The green resurrects,” Ponette says confidently as she shows her multi-colored candies to Mathias . Despite her bewilderment and others scorn, Ponette clings tenaciously to her faith that her mother will return. She keeps constant vigil for her lost “mama,” begs God to convey her messages to her mother and weeps bitterly when God seems to respond only with silence. Her desperate pleas are heart-breaking, and so this film is not suited for the overly sensitive.

Eventually, Ponette finds Ada, a classmate who claims to be “a child of God.” Ada contends that, as God’s child, she converses directly with Him and influences His decisions. In order to establish such a relationship, Ada tells her, Ponette must undergo a series of “trials.” She proceeds to put Ponette through several tests, beginning with an obstacle course.

Ponette’s struggle thus begins to emerge as a metaphor for the universal human struggle to find truth. Her childish conversations and inability to grasp the concepts of death, God and the afterlife are analogous to our own feeble attempts as adults to grapple such issues while mired in human frailty. The film is therefore intensely thought-provoking and, through its central character, strikes a deep chord in any viewer who has wrestled with such questions. The film’s profoundly religious themes are further enhanced by such symbolism as recurring crucifixion imagery. When Ponette tries to conjure her mother from the grave, for example, she lies on her back with her arms outstretched at her sides, chanting “Ta Ki Takoom!”

Thivisol’s performance as Ponette is both breathtaking and heartrending. It seems unimaginable that a child so young could act so movingly. By capturing Thivisol at close range and odd angles, the magnificent cinematography intensifies the emotion and suffering written across its star’s expressive face.

Without revealing too much about the film’s conclusion, Ponette’s emotional intensity is finally relieved somewhat when the child receives confirmation of her faith that she will receive some sign from above. Yet, the platitudes that satisfy Ponette in the end are strangely empty. The value of life is affirmed, but the wisdom Ponette gains is that she must “learn to be happy.” This instruction lacks any reference to God and implies that peace and happiness can be mentally willed without God’s help. Perhaps that is the film’s point: we blindly accept meaningless truisms to avoid acknowledging our inability to grasp these truths that only God can understand, and thus we deny our need for Him.

Even with its ambivalent end, PONETTE is commendable for its willingness to raise such profound spiritual questions and for treating them with the gravity they merit. It also is to be applauded for presenting some Christian truths, even though it treats falsehood with equal weight. Its explorations of issues of faith is respectful, even reverent, and thankfully lacks the usual watered-down Hollywood movie treatment. Ultimately, the movie confirms Ada’s assertion that “It’s God who decides” for only He has the power to reveal truth.