Mimi (La Bouche de Jean-Pierre)


Photo Courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival

Little Mimi's entire world implodes in the wake of her mother's suicide attempt. Mimi is placed in the care of her stoic Aunt Solange in her modest housing-pro)ect apartment. On her very first night, Mimi's sleep is interrupted by the arrival of her aunt's lover Jean-Pierre, a stranger whose presence threatens her physical safety and emotional stability. Mimi deftly registers the cramped subsistence, fluorescent drone, and waxen spirit of life in the projects. In her somber and desolate portrait of victimization, Lucile Hadzilhalilovic has captured the caustic rupturings of familial dislocation from a child's perspective.
- Rebecca Yeldham