Some sun in the cold water. For this film, I was getting up for quite a long time - I gained courage, knowing that, alas, this is the last role of Dirk Bogard in the movie. Not that I'm afraid I'll be disappointed, no.
I just felt like the movie would hit.
This is a subtle, aching story about the relationship of a daughter and father, who know about their imminent separation, and about the desire to have time to give each other what they did not have time to give before.
The heroine Jane Birkin, Carol, who lives in Paris, and came to visit her parents on the Cote d'Azur to visit the father who underwent a serious operation, suddenly realizes that she does not know her father, whose days, as it turned out, are numbered. Returning to her childhood, Karol recalls that she never felt very close to her father, who at that time sailed on a ship, and in rare moments of his stay at home, the girl was more left to the nanny and herself than to parents absorbed in each other. Now Karol has a difficult test: to spend his last days with his father, and she wants him to feel her love and care. However, it turns out that Tony (the name of Dirk Bogard’s character) is not enough. He feels in his daughter the only person close to whom he is ready to tell more than just complaints about health and boredom.
Tony is "not ready to leave this party" where nothing will change with his departure. He always loved life and “knew how to live”, and this is the only gift he wants to leave to his daughter: “Don’t lose it, don’t lose it...” From now on, as her father wanted, she will go through life with a wide open eyes.
Dirk Bogard is, as usual, magnificent. This time as Tony. He builds the image of his hero with the help of barely noticeable strokes, halftones, gestures, the subtlest experiences.
And despite the extreme drama of what is happening on the screen, Tony managed to convey a life-affirming feeling to the viewer.
Bertrand Tavernier gave us completely unexpected facets of the incredibly harmonious duet Birkin-Bogard.