Briskness and fatigue: Le Père de mes enfants as melodrama, precarity and impasse

Abstract

This article examines Le Père de mes enfants (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2009) as a family melodrama and as an example of the cinema of precarity. The article defines both of these terms and applies them to Le Père de mes enfants, arguing that the film effectively combines pathetic melodrama with the cinema of precarity. More specifically, it is argued that Le Père de mes enfants constitutes situation and impasse as they are defined by scholars of film melodrama and the cinema of precarity. Impasse is given particular substance by Le Père de mes enfants’ central figure, Grégoire; and via Grégoire as a maximised type, it is argued that Le Père de mes enfants vividly combines melodrama, impasse and charisma. Charisma is defined, and it is argued that this term can be linked to established accounts of film melodrama, as well as to the expectations made of precarious subjects. As well as Grégoire, the article considers Le Père de mes enfants’ distinctive form, and its later focus on Sylvia. In all these respects, it is argued that Le Père de mes enfants constitutes a distinctive form of impasse and the cinema of precarity, as well as an emergent form of family melodrama.