The Hedgehog: First-Rate French Fun

I hate to do this, but I—as a film critic—am going to give a shi-shi foreign film a positive review. Ugh, I know. It’s so stereotypical and annoying, right? I mean, who goes to see these things anyway? Well, I’ll tell you, only film critics and people who own monocles, that’s who. And here I am just cow-towing to the conformity of it all. But this film really earns it. It’s structurally perfect story-wise, and the performance, visuals, and soundtrack do not disappoint either. So even though this is a positive review of something shi-shi by some random critic (moi), don’t let that negatively color your judgment toward this amazing film because that would be doing yourself a disservice.

The Hedgehog (titled Le hérissonin French) opens on Paloma Josse (Garance Le Guillermic), a little girl residing in a fancy residential building. She is a precocious 11 year old who videotapes nearly every moment of her life. While she is hiding in a closet, she explains to her camera that her life is predestined to mean nothing—a beautiful trap. Intent on avoiding this horror, she plans on killing herself on her 12^th birthday. Also featured is Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko), the dowdy concierge for the building. None of the wealthy residents pay her any mind; but when she is alone, she retreats to her secret room to eat dark chocolate and read Russian novels. Paoloma and Renée lead separate lonely existences that are particular to each of their circumstances but when Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) moves into the building, he sets off a string of events that will indelibly change their lives.

There are three key things done exceptionally well in this film. The first of these three is an inclusion of cinematic echoes. These appear as foreshadowing or “plant and pay off” and they also appear simply as a parallelism within the story between seemingly separate elements. These echoes create for the audience a deeper connection to the story, and thus a deeper effect resounds from the film. This does not mean that The Hedgehog features a bunch of repeating scenes. Instead, it focuses on the connection between the characters in the story. They echo with each other, as well as with the audience, and that is why such a strong effect is felt from this film.

Expert pacing is the second key. Sometimes when you’re writing, you create a golden moment. But that means nothing in the face of an entire work. If something doesn’t contribute to your work as a whole, it needs to be either retooled or removed. After you’ve slaved away to create the perfect scene, you’ve got to stand back and be honest. Is it any good? If it is, does it work for the project you are currently on? If the answer is no, then so must be the answer to the question of whether or not to include it in the main work. While this applies to writing in general, it is specific to pacing in that trying to force something that doesn’t work will either confuse your audience, bore them, or leave them feeling as if they’ve missed something—or worse, they’ll start writing it for you in their heads, and they will lament that you did not include more of “Ice Skating Drill Sergent #4” in the film they are currently watching. The Hedgehog juggles the various bits of its story quite well. Each bit is featured as much as is necessary without causing any undue distraction to the audience by overstaying its welcome. It is clear from this that a brutal eye of precision went over the script many times, ensuring that nothing was ill suited to the whole.

Lastly, the third key is the simplicity and realness of emotion found in the writing. The only thing that can evoke this is hard work. Writer/director Mona Achache knew these characters inside and out. She knew their lifestyles, down to the smallest details. She knew to find answers by asking the hard (and many) questions. And this questions asking tool is one of the most important in the writer’s arsenal as you can get real hackneyed real fast if you aren’t using digging beneath the tip of the iceberg.

Bottom line, this film is amazing; definitely among the best of the year. In order to emulate its success, do the work hard to know everything about the world you’re writing and then craft your story like a sculpture or a song. In doing so, you will be ensuring that all the pieces work in tandem to transport your audience to the destination you desire for them; just like The Hedgehog did.

Don’t miss this film. In fact, study it.