Movie Review: The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches **** / *****

Directed by: Simon Lavoie.

Written by: Simon Lavoie based on the novel by Gaétan Soucy.

Starring: Marine Johnson (Ali / Alice), Antoine L'Écuyer (Frère), Jean-François Casabonne (Père), Alex Godbout (Paul-Marie), Laurie Babin (Juste).

 

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a bleak, black and white drama from Quebec. It is a film that starts out mysteriously, and has those mysteries deepen over the majority of its runtime. Yes, it basically wraps everything up by the end – a little too neatly for my taste – but overall, this is a challenging film about sexual oppression, religion, misogyny and its lasting impact. It is also a stunning film to look at – shot in stark black and white, the film can be brutal and hard-to-watch, but it never crosses the line into exploitation.

 

Set in 1930s, rural Quebec, the film centers of Ali (Marine Johnson), a teenage girl, being raised by her father (Jean-Francois Casabonne), shuttered away from the outside world alongside her brother (Antoine L'Écuyer). They are so sheltered, that their father is able to raise Ali as a boy – telling her penis just fell off as a child, along with cutting her hair short, and binding her breasts. But the outside world can only stay outside for so long – as is set in motion when her brother rapes her one day in the woods (I honestly don’t know what to make of the rape scene in the film – it’s quick, and non-exploitive, but I’m not quite sure what to make of the “how” it came about. It almost seems more like it was necessary to the plot, and not overly thought out). When her father examines her one night, and figures out she’s pregnant, that’s when he loses it. He will end up hanging himself, naked, in their house – his body becoming a source of fascination to both teenagers (Frere wonders if his penis is where they came from). And I haven’t even mentioned the strange, Gollum like person chained in the barn that the father refers to as Just Punishment, which Ali will shorten to Juste.

 

The first act of The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is mysterious, as it locks us into Ali’s perspective, so we only figure things out as she does. Obviously, we know a few things before she does – namely, that she’s a girl (because we have eyes) – and also that her father’s behavior is not normal – from the way he chases off outsiders, to the bizarre religious rituals, to Juste out on the barn, we are far more concerned about his behavior that Ali is – who sees this as normal.

 

His death really is the catalyst for the rest of the story – that will unfold from them, piling on one revelation after another. Johnson is great in the lead role. Her performance is urgent and animalistic, without going over-the-top. She maintains our sympathy, even as more secrets spill out. L'Écuyer is fine as Frere as well – although he perhaps goes a little too far as the film spirals towards it climax, and he tries with increasing desperation to fill his father’s shoes.

 

The film was adapted (apparently liberally, since you cannot hide Ali being a girl in a film like you can in a book) by Simon Lavoie, from Gaétan Soucy’s novel. Like Lavoie’s last film – Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (that one was co-directed by Marc Denis) – it is a bold, stylistic film, although in a much different style (that film called back to the Godard films of the 1960s with its use of color). Here, he has gone for something much more stark and unrelenting in his use of black and white, and handheld camera work. It gives the film a raw, animalistic feel that perfectly matches its content.

 

I do wish that the film didn’t quite feel the end to tie up every loose end. I was enjoying the ambiguity of the film as it progressed, and I don’t think that wrapping it up with a neat bow was really the only way to go here. On the other hand, the story certainly isn’t over when the film ends – and its anyone’s guess as to what comes next. Overall, I think The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches confirms the potential that Lavoie showed in Those Who Dig Their Own Graves, which is a film I liked, but at nearly three hours was WAY too long, considering it had no real story. Both are provocative and daring stories about Quebec’s past – and moving into the future. Canadian film needs some new blood to in it – and Lavoie has the potential to be great.