Film review: Reel 2 Real festival's Belle and Sebastian: The New Generation is a beautifully shot, Alps-set boy-and-his-dog story
Closing-night French film is unaffected and unpatronizing in its themes around nature, animal treatment, and disappearing farm traditions
Reel 2 Real Film Festival for Youth screens Belle and Sebastian: The Next Generation on April 6 at 6 pm
CANADIAN AUDIENCES may associate the name Belle and Sebastian more with a Scottish indie-pop band than a French TV series in the '60s, and its ensuing movie franchise. What they need to know is that the latest installment of the big-screen series about this beloved boy-and-his-dog story set in the French Alps is a beautifully shot, heartwarming film that will engage both children and adults—minus any of the sentimentality of Hollywood kids’ movies. That despite the fact Belle and Sebastian: The Next Generation—Reel 2 Real Film Festival for Youth’s closing-night film—features an adorable, gigantic white Great Pyrenees that will win over even the non-dog people out there.
For a sense of how effortlessly cool the French are, even in their family flicks, witness the scene when 10-year-old Parisian Seb (an unaffected Robinson Mensah Rouanet) steps into his granny and aunt’s remote Alp sheepherding cabin for the first time. Tacked to the stone wall is a gigantic poster of Iggy Pop, prompting the youth to ask “Who’s that?” Cue a géant eye roll from grandma Corrine (a wonderfully no-nonense Michèle Laroque) and then her answer: “The God of Rock.”
Grand-mère also happens to ride a motorcycle, birth lambs, and run an entire farm in much the same way it’s existed for generations. A lot of the beauty of the film comes from the allusions to a disappearing way of life—and landscape. Corinne is preparing to sell her land to neighbours who are working with ski resort developers. (It’s important to note that kids are never spoken down to when it comes to these themes—ditto for topics around animal abuse and loss, all handled sensitively here.)
But when Seb is sent to stay with her, neither Corinne nor her grandson are eager about the arrangement. Seb has gotten into trouble at a Paris skate park, and needs a place to hang out while his mother travels to Prague for work. The boy is warmly welcomed by his freespirited mountainclimbing aunt Noémie (Alice David), but Corinne takes a while to bond with him—slowly opening up with her own issues. Together they take one last journey on the transhumance, a long, summer walking route up into the mountains where the flock can graze.
At the centre of it all is the dog Belle, a supposedly unruly mutt owned by Noé’s boyfriend Gas. But when Seb bonds with the dog, helping it escape Gas’s mistreatment, he realizes it’s a gifted sheep herder and protector against wolves—not to mention a loyal friend for a lonely kid. It’s all emotionally resonant and surprisingly engrossing (especially for a film that, from the outset, sounds like a mix between Lassie and that 1970s Alp-dog TV show George).
Celebrating a city kid’s opening to the majesty of nature, director Pierre Coré creates a gorgeous backdrop of towering Alp peaks, emerald-mossed forests, and shimmering cave lakes.
Admittedly the late-act action sequences, complete with a parasailing sequence, diverge a little into Hollywood territory. But granny on her Avinton Roadster in a chic scarf and cargo jacket, her grandkid holding on tightly behind her, both sans helmets? Welcome to Europe.
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