Movie Watching: The Hedgedog By Mona Achache

This hits the bulleye in my heart.(or nearly, perhaps)I used to dream of the combination between tenderness of French Art sensitivity and Japanese neat manipulation, and this movie goes beyond my expectation.

Elegance of portraiting Muriel Barbery's bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Paloma is a 11 years old girl with artistic and cultural background who's determined to commit suicide at her 12 years-old birthday. Equipped with her father's old camcorder, she decided to film down her surrounding and provided some narrating why she want to get out this "fishbowl". She mentioned that the world is a huge fishbowl with adults banging around their head in the fishbowl and she gave some in-depth explanation(or assumed, childish to an adult) of the incidents around her. She tried to find a reason to proof that this world she is living in is degrading her dignity and the "adults" chasing on wealth,political position(her father is a politician), satisfaction of their taste buds(even ignored the alarm of their neighbours' death due to healthy problems )and ended their life with the fear of death is a shame to her. She even drew a emotion calender on her bedroom's wall(Omg, her drawings are beautiful!) to countdown her death. She stole and stockpiled her mother's tranquilizers and crushed them so that she can die without pain by consuming those(lol, she even tried it on her goldfish). She pinpointed the adults' blindspot of extravagance and mask to hide their pea-brain give us(we the audience) some space to think about that(Her mother's concern on plants more than her daughter and who is addicted to Freudian analysis, tranquilizers, and champagne, her parent's guest who knows little about "go" but describes the function behind it wrongly etc.)

Then the camera switched. Widower Monsieur Ozu moved into a flat besides her house and converted it into a Japanese oasis with Zen-ism and aesthetic calm( I love his house! Even the toiletbowl will sings Mozart's when you sit down! OMG I love your house!)Meanwhile, Madame Michel is in charge of the janitor post in the luxury 5-unit Parisian apartment. (their elevator! So sophisticated!)When the gentleman Monsieur Ozu met Madame Michel, he correctly assumed that she is a "hedgedog with hostile spikes outside but terribly elegant inside. " He presented a 2-volume "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy(name of Madame Michel's cat) then invited her for a dinner (which Madame Michel had to seek help from her friend to get a dress and a haircut as she never bother about her outfit for a long time), followed by sharing an old Japanese film together.

Back to Paloma, she is clever to unfold Madame Michel's spiky shell and included her in the filming as well. She said to Madame Michel,"you found a perfect hiding place" by pointing towards the door when thousands of books were piled behind it.It's Madame Michel's Reading room. She draws a card for her together with her Reading Room with her own imagination(and that is LOVElY). Paloma admires her because she can spend hours in her backroom reading books, while appeared as a grumpy old creature outside that people don't even see and bother about her. The downhill of the story crushed viewer's fairytale by ending Madame Michel's life in a car accident when she tried to help a drunken man away from the street. Only then, Paloma realised the meaning behind "death". "Death" is not one's feeling or ending of one's life only, but the impact on his or her relationship circle around him/her.

I recommended viewers to watch this movie for a few times as this is a rare masterpiece. As i mentioned, French director has an poetic sense in conducting flipping landscapes and body languages.

Rating: 9.0/10.0