Wild Life

Thursday 9^th October, 6.15pm – Curzon Mayfair

Friday 10^th October, 3.30pm – Vue West End

Sunday 19^th October, 8.15pm – Vue West End

Wild Life is, put simply, a very beautiful film. It’s display of the soft wilderness and rolling hills of the French countryside is as classical and mellow as your aching heart could desire, which is just as well because boy does this film make your heart ache. The beautiful imagery and soundscape opens you up so the hard stuff hits with a smack, as the true story of a father’s love for his children is revealed through Cédric Kahn’s carefully crafted writing and direction.

Nora and Paco are a semi-nomadic French couple living out their dream of raising a family in nature, free of the demands of consumerism and the rat race. Except mud and squalor isn’t exactly what Nora dreams of anymore, so she takes her three beautiful little wild boys and bounces backs to her parent’s home in the suburbs. Her plan, however, is met with much resistance, and Paco manages to kidnap his sons in an attempt to scare the law to side with him. Ten years of hiding pass, and the peace of life on the land starts to metamorphose into anguish and restlessness as his sons grow into young adults.

Kahn has used an inverted style of directing to tell this story, where it is what is not said or shown that is magnified. The imagery may be soft and sublime, but the emotional undercurrent is tense and charged with pain and fire. There is a distinct lack of glory and ceremony, which draws attention to the charm of life’s simple things, such as sunlight caught in people’s arm hair and the chink of silver cutlery. But it also dramatises the fundamentals of life and what it is to be human – to love, essentially. This balance of soft beauty and fierce love is expertly interwoven throughout to maximum emotional effect, and you’re left with a strange burning feeling inside that seems to blend heartbreak and happiness into one powerful blow.

Alex Finch

Wild Life release date is yet to be announced.

For further information about the BFI London Film Festival visit here.

Read more reviews from the festival here.

Watch the trailer for Wild Life here: