One might be surprised to see Maurice Barthélémy, a member of the comic company "Les Robins des Bois", write and direct such a simple, modest and deep movie. But that would be forgetting that most comics are sensitive human beings, therefore at ease in drama or tragedy, while the opposite is not always true : great tragedians do not necessarily have a sense of humor.
I must admit that the beginning of the film left me perplexed. With only two characters (Daddy and eight-year-old Louis) and a car, with a propensity to avoid action, wasn't I about to get awfully bored? This sensation didn't last long since the author deftly interspersed his "lazy" narrative with funny scenes such as : Daddy lifting diminutive Louis to make him level with the adult-size urinal ; Daddy's crazy dancing to the cheesy song "Jésus est né en Provence" ; Daddy playing the western saloon bartender. Other short sequences or scenes were moving such as : Daddy lulling Louis to sleep in a hotel room ; Daddy soothing Sonny after a fit of nerves. Nevertheless, half into the (short-running) film, I started wondering : would I ever remember "Papa"? The plot had indeed been so thin hitherto that I feared the movie might soon vanish in the haze of my memory.
Such was not the case. On the contrary. The explanation is obvious. Barthélémy had intentionally doled out information about the characters' recent past in the first half, reserving it for the second part. Then little by little I was made to understand why father and son behaved the way they did - at times somewhat weirdly. And the very minute the last picture faded from the screen I started thinking about all I had seen instead of forgetting the whole thing. The shock of the revelation is still haunting me days after the screening of "Papa".
Psychologically accurate, genuinely moving (not a moment of easy pathos), played to perfection by Alain Chabat (one of his best performances to date, in a character close to his real life personality)and young Martin Combes ( who is able to translate the feeling of guilty sadness eating away his character at such a young age), "Papa"is highly recommended to anyone who has a heart.
