It is quite refreshing (or perhaps the word is wrongly chosen) to see an American film from the USA where people do not smile continuously and have false fake problems or Hollywood lifestyles. Of course, cinema is all lies, as Michel Houellebecq recently said (in the interview given in "Les Inrockuptibles", no. 771 8-14, Sep 2010) - but some lies are more truthful than others and I have found this film closer to the America I know than the one falsely depicted in LA's hills - weirdly enough a film close to everyone coming from rural places, with their toughness, long memories, their mysterious murders and the justice struggling somehow to find the truth. I am not sure I have understood much to be truthful as I was struggling with the accents, the film was entirely shot in some rural parts of Missouri (the Ozarks plateau, in the south of the region - thank you Wikipedia!) and speak of the struggle of Dolly, seventeen, who tries to find her drug dealing father, missing for several weeks. He is called to court and has put the house as a bail bond - the house where she lives with her two younger siblings and her mentally fragile mother. It's a tough film with some tender moments nevertheless - the relationship Dolly has with her siblings, the bluegrass singing in the cafe. And yes, some very grim moments too... The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival in 2010. And I very much appreciate why.

Lucile Deslignères 16 Oct 2010

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Winter's Bone

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