IFI FRENCH FILM CLUB – THE THORN IN MY HEART

Tuesday 18 January - 9pm
IFI FRENCH FILM CLUB – THE THORN IN MY HEART
6 Eustace Street
Dublin 2

The Thorn in my Heart is a film directed by Michel Gondry. Starring Michel Gondry, Suzette Gondry, Jean-Yves Gondry.
Watching the work of the French fabulist Michel Gondry can be an intoxicating yet frustrating experience. Few directors share his ability to make images that seem to plug directly into our feelings, particularly those of nostalgia, melancholy and childhood joy.
But despite his knack for enchantment, the films he builds from those images, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, don’t quite sweep us away. Their eccentricity and whimsicality begin to feel studied, then insistent, and finally a bit off-putting; what seemed to be transparent turns out to be opaque.
For his new film The Thorn in the Heart, Mr. Gondry dispensed nearly entirely with the visual embroidery that has been his trademark since his music-video days. “Thorn” is about as personal a project as you’ll see from a major filmmaker: a documentary portrait of Mr. Gondry’s formidable Aunt Suzette, a family linchpin and former schoolteacher, and of her troubled relationship with her son, Jean-Yves.

Introduced by Laurent Marie, Lecturer in French at UCD
Tickets available at the IFI: AF members €7 - Non-members €9.50