Will It Snow for Christmas? Review

Life on the French farm featured in Sandrine Veysset`s haunting first feature, Will It Snow For Christmas? is far from idyllic. An unnamed woman, played by Dominique Reymond, lives in a rundown house with her seven children. There`s no bathroom, no toilet, inadequate heating. The women and her older children perform what almost amounts to slave labour, toiling in the fields owned by the farmer, Daniel Duval, who, we discover, is the father of the woman`s children but who lives in comfortable circumstances nearby with his official family, his wife and children. The woman is shamelessly used and exploited, not only as a sexual object but as a source of cheap labour. In documentary style, Veysset probingly follows the fortunes of the woman and her children from summer to winter, as the weather turns cold and living conditions become almost impossible. Somewhat reminiscent of Terence Davies` Distant Voices, Still Lives, this painfully realistic film is desperately sad and yet the beautiful conclusion offers optimism of a sort. An impressive achievement.