RenŽe is a 54-year-old concierge in Paris. When she is not opening the door for movers or accepting packages for those who live in the luxury apartment building, she spends her time reading in a small closet of a ground-floor unit that she shares with a big, lazy cat. Paloma is 11 and despises her life. She sees no point in the ÒlifeÓ shown her by her politician dad, by an older sister who regards her as a nuisance, and by a mother kept barely alive with therapy, prescription drugs and champagne. Paloma prefers to end it all ÐÐ in 165 days, to be exact, when she turns 12. But when Kakuo, an elegant widower, moves into a vacant apartment, both their lives begin to unfurl.
The world of first-time director Mona AchacheÕs The Hedgehog is a 19th-century building in a tony Parisian neighborhood, its art nouveau elevator more decorative (historically significant) than functional. This wrought-iron-gated, updated-with-money world is seen through the lens of a hand-me-down video camera wielded by Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic). When she points her vintage hi8, the gentility of the setting is boiled down to a grainy essential, a savage survival itself like any other.
Despite PalomaÕs seriousness and her rational preparations (she steals a few pills a day from her mom), we donÕt believe for a second that this precocious child is going to kill herself in the end. Instead of an existential suspense, itÕs the levity of the music, the filmÕs gentle humor and graceful brush-pen animation that keep us watching The Hedgehog. Oh, and of course thereÕs the question of whether or not RenŽe (Josiane Balasko of French Twist) and Kakuo (Togo Igawa, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Last Samurai) will get it on.
That theirs is a love at first sight is a foregone conclusion: When lines from Anna Karenina slip into the conversation, the white-haired Japanese man and the frumpy gatekeeper for the rich recognize in each other a kindred soul. IsnÕt RenŽe even reading In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki when we first see her at the beginning of the film? Of course Kakuo (last name Ozu ÐÐ RenŽe asks him if he is related to the film director) is that post-Murakami male who whips out four-star cuisine with ritual calm and orderliness, and even understands womenÕs dress. And who wouldnÕt love this thoroughly gentle man who values shared love of literature and film more than outward appearances?
The Hedgehog of the title is how Paloma describes RenŽe; she knows by instinct that beneath the
armor of neglect and insignificance breathes a sensitive ÐÐ even refined ÐÐ creature. Because she herself is one.
ÒYou know how to hide,Ó Paloma says to the older woman, one conspirator to another.
ÐÐ Rika Ohara
Some Prefer Nettles