The new film by French director Claire Denis (best known in this country for such films as Chocolat, I Can’t Sleep and Beau Travail) is a work of that casual skill attained by only the most accomplished, in the service of a candid and probing and clear-eyed love, of the director for her characters and (sometimes less clear-eyed) of her characters for each other. It screened recently at the Clay Theater as part of the 2009 SFIFF.

The film, though continuing Denis’ exploration of the experience of blacks in colonial and postcolpnial France, uses it to probe even more recalcitrant issues. The racial issues, while not neglected or glossed over, are made peripheral to the intractable problems of love and loss, hope and disillusionment, the dynamics and delusions of family, the limits of friendship and love, that define much of human experience. Denis’ understanding of the human plight, for male and female, seems hard-earned indeed; honest without bitterness, kind without sentimentality.

            The story – one of the simplest and most universal - centers in the almost marital relationship between Lionel, a middle-aged African commuter train driver, and Jo, his mixed-race college-age daughter, with whom he lives in a suburb of an unnamed French city. A woman taxi driver lives in the same building, as does a young (white) man, both of whom have established relationships with the father and daughter that are defined only slowly as the film progresses.

            Much of the pleasure the film provides results from the subtlety and skill with which these and the film’s other relationships are elaborated. This is a film of glances and side glances, smiles and half-smiles, silences and silences, the hug that means hello and the hug that means good bye, the routines of affection and the crises of discovery, severance, abandonment and embarkation.  

            Alex Descas plays Lionel as a man of quietness and loyalty who has come to depend on his daughter emotionally more than he realizes; there is more than a hint of incestuous desire, though in one sweetly painful scene, the bafflement is patent in Lionel’s eyes as he realizes the depth of his longing for the daughter he so genuinely loves and her charming, and fortunate (though perhaps it is instinctively, and wisely, feigned), obliviousness.

            The daughter is played by a magical newcomer: Mati Diop, an enchanting presence on screen as the innocent and affectionate Jo. Her character establishes the sweetness of the film, as Lionel’s does its stability and candor. Her gentle earnestness, her naivete, are almost implausible for a young woman of our time, albeit very appealing. There is a scene in which Jo is emotionally and physically invaded as she dances in a quiet bar with her young neighbor; it is a classic example of how to demonstrate the terror and wonder of sexual awakening in an innocent, unsuspecting, open-hearted young woman. That Jo seems so unaware of her beauty and the effect it has on others makes her almost too good to be true, yet this thought only crops up when reflecting later about the movie. Onscreen, Jo is as convincing as she is endearing.

            Early in the film, one of Lionel’s fellow drivers is forced into retirement: he is alone, without family, and his retirement reduces him to a despair that troubles Lionel as it suggests where he himself may he headed in a not remote future. The film’s conclusion leaves us wondering how well he is likely to hold up when facing the loneliness to come. Yet so well has the film established the reality and sheer likeability of Lionel and Jo that the viewer walks home spinning hopeful sequels to this inevitable story of fathers and daughters.

            The confident cinematography is by Agnés Godard, the rewarding score by Tindersticks, the finely paced editing by Guy Lecorne.