Blame It on Fidel! (2007)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Pretty Good

How sad is this?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

As Anna goes, so goes France! Or something...A nine year old girl weathers her affluent family's shift toward leftest politics along with the rest of 1970's French youth culture. Little Anna's fear of change manifests in her traditional attitudes towards religion and social class.Costa Gavras' daughter makes her directorial feature film debut. It's a nice flick. Sometimes honest, sometimes hokey and obvious. It does come dangerously close to equating conservatism with childishness and liberalism with emotional maturity, which even for a leftest like me comes off a little trite. But through it all Nina Kervel-Bey, who plays Anna, is amazing as the (mostly) conservative child in a Allende supporting anti-Franco family. As a scowling little brat, she's aces, but she has real range too.And her little brother has to be one of the most entertaining young kids I've seen put on film in a while. Worth watching.

Yes, blame it on Julie Gavras for making one of the most boring and clichéd films ever to concern childhood.I can't believe how excited I was in looking forward to seeing this film. As it turns out, I was bitterly disappointed. I'll save you the nonsense essays about the 1960's and revolutions. In this contrived film they have little relevance except to act as a crutch for a film that is teetering on disaster.As for the so called little girl - Nina Kervel-Bey. Do you know of any soulless, miserable children of nine years going on ninety years of age? I don't. Is Gavras really trying to tell us that children become traumatised because of their parent's political changes? What nonsense. Maybe she should visit a few homes where children have really been traumatised by horrid experiences.Key features missing from this film are warmth, love and compassion. A po faced Kervel-Bey and her entourage just don't deliver. Any humour there is comes from a few glib lines from her father. Moreover most of the 'action' takes place within a claustrophobic interior.Should Ms Gavras ever venture into making other films with children she would do well to watch "Jeux Interdit" or "Anche Libero Va Bene". And had she watched the exceptional "Together" by Lukas Moodysson she wouldn't have bothered making "Blame It On Fidel".If nothing else Ms Gavras has performed a minor miracle. She has managed to combine two key French elements into one film. Namely the bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat. Maybe that's why it's such a dog's dinner of a film. At least with one or the other genres one knows who is the real enemy.Zero points because it wasted some of my life when I could have been plucking chickens.

A child's point of view is a nice way of seeing ugly and distant political and social facts. Julie Gravas updates the style of her father for a new age, treating austerely political repression and social innovation which served the interest of many at the cost of harming most. Those who lived in those modern dark ages, in countries like Brazil, Chile , Argentina, Uruguai, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and several others, which are now democracies, will have a new look through the eyes (with a biographical touch) a lovely young girl and her little brother. Sometimes funny, other times dramatic, even tragic, but throughout well-conducted and subtly inspired. Not to be missed.

BLAME IT ON FIDEL! ('La Faute à Fidel!) is an enlightening film from France's fine director Julie Gavras, a story based on the novel 'Tutta colpa di Fidel' by Domitilla Calamai that addresses the effect of major political, philosophical, and activist effects on children. What makes this fine film unique is the child's stance on the adult politics: what may seem like exciting challenges for change of an existing corrupt system for the adults may indeed be an unwanted rearrangement of the wants and needs of children whose political acumen is less advanced than the need for order and consistency in everyday life.The story takes place in Paris in 1970 - 1971. 9-year-old Anna de la Mesa (Nina Kervel-Bey) is a bright child who loves the divinity aspects of her Catholic school and enjoys the wealthy bourgeois elegance that surrounds her. She and her little brother François (Benjamin Feuillet) are informed that their aunt, an anti-Franco activist from Spain, will be moving in with Anna and her parents Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and Marie (Julie Depardieu). This critical move incites a change in philosophy for Anna's parents and soon they become enchanted with the rise of Allende in Chile and embrace the Socialist mindset and the promised feminist movement changes, moving from their elegant house into a small apartment and demanding that Anna give up her divinity studies 'because the are against Communist thought'. As liaison in France for Chilean activists, Fernando holds strange and frequent meetings, disturbing further the life Anna loves. While little François is able to go along with the life changes, Anna rebels and refuses to alter her goals and needs merely for the 'fad' of her father's frequent trips to Chile while leaving behind her mother to continue writing articles for the ('bourgeois') French magazine Marie-Claire! As the political upheavals increase Anna is more pugnacious in demanding her rights and the finest moments of the story demonstrate how a child can respond to political change and still find her 'place' in the world that she chooses! The pacing of the film is fast and captures the exhilaration of the foment 'round the world in the early 1970s. The cast is excellent, especially the children who have not had prior exposure to acting. The message is a potent one that deserves our attention both as informative of a political era and as a piece of veritas cinema from a fine director and crew. In French and Spanish with English subtitles. Highly recommended. Grady Harp