Love According to Dalva

Dalva is twelve. One night the police come into the house and take her from her father. She resists; she counts it an injustice and defends him. She is placed in a care home. There she appears as a child in make up, dressed like an adult and speaking like one. The other children do not understand her. A worker and a room mate stay beside her. In time Dalva sees other children and starts reading her own situation from outside. She asks for a meeting with her father. Emmanuelle Nicot writes and directs; it is her first feature. Zelda Samson plays Dalva and Alexis Manenti the worker; Fanta Guirassy is in the cast. It is a Belgian and French co-production. The film was shown in the Critics' Week section at the Cannes Film Festival and won a prize there. The narrative does not show the abuse; it happened before the film begins and the camera reconstructs nothing. The matter it treats is a child naming her own situation; at first Dalva takes what she lived for love. It is Zelda Samson's first film and her performance carries it. The other children in the home are not written as types; each has a situation of her own. The narrative offers no easy recovery and the process moves slowly. Its limit is the watching; the subject is extremely heavy and some scenes uncomfortable. Who it is for: viewers who like European realist drama and narratives from a child's viewpoint. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the pace slow, and the ending left open.