DONNE-MOI LA MAIN (GIVE ME YOUR HAND)

France, 2008, 80 minutes, Colour.
Alexandre Carril, Victor Carril, Katrin Sass, Fernando Ramallo.
Directed by Pascal- Alex Vincent.

A road movie, highways, back roads, forest tracks and some railways.

The film begins with an arresting animated sequence, a boy helping his father in a bakery, clashing with his father, and his twin brother coming to the shop and enticing him to leave. As we take up the live action, the two brothers are hitch-hiking to Spain for their mother's funeral. They take quite a long time to get there (and often it seems that way thought the running time of the film is only 80 minutes).

The brothers are played by identical twins, Alexandre and Victor Carril, who have appeared in some short films for the director. Fortunately, for identifying them, because they are strongly identical, one has a scar above his eye – he is the one in the bakery, Antoine. The other, Quentin, does drawings.

Apart from a lot of pretty scenery, which we get plenty of opportunity and time to contemplate, and wondering whom they will encounter next (and will there be sexual activity – there is), the main interest is in watching the twins and how they relate to each other. They both have what we might now call the Robert Pattinson Twilight look. They can be soulful and morose. They can be irascible (and there are quite a number of punch-ups, with each other, that is). They get lifts from friendly people, exploitative people, and stop to earn train ride money helping with a harvest.

A mood piece which, or may not, hold the interest.

1. A short film? Character study? In the French and Spanish landscapes? The musical score?

2. The issue of twins, identical, similar characters, characteristics? Real-life twins portraying the twins? The brother with the scar as different from the one without? Audience difficulty in recognising which was which?

3. The interaction of the twins, their age, their work with their father, the decision to go to their mother’s funeral? The friendship? The clashes, the physical fights? Their surly and morose expressions? Their work? Quentin and his sketching? Jealousies? Curiosities?

4. The introduction: the animation, its style, the focus on Antoine and his working for his father, the bakery, the clash with his father, his brother coming to the window, their leaving? The transition to their walking along the rail tracks?

5. The film and its landscapes, the variety, photographed in a pretty way? Time for contemplation? The roads, the fields, the mountains?

6. The characters as they developed in their journey, their aim to go to their mother’s funeral? Who was in charge? Their lack of money? Hitchhiking? Getting on trucks, on trains? Their working in bringing in the harvest? The separation at the station, the clash? Their both arriving at the funeral? The film focusing more on Antoine than Quentin?

7. The people that they met on the way: Clementine, the snacks, her bringing the cup of coffee, her brother and his violence, her leaving with them, her curiosity about twins? The sexual encounter? Her leaving? The woman on the train? Sympathetic, listening to the story, her own sad story? The man in the car, with the boxes, their running away without helping him? The two girls in the car, the sexual encounter? Bringing in the hay, Antoine and his hard work, Quentin and the attraction of the young man, their going off in the night, the river, the night together, Antoine watching? His reaction to his brother? The contrast with Quentin watching him as he washed in the river? The woman who took Antoine in after his collapse, on the farm, the sexual behaviour? The Spanish man, his kindliness, the old man in the back of the car? Antoine’s collapse and wanting to help? The man at the station, eyeing the brothers, Antoine taking the hundred euros, the encounter with Quentin, his fighting to get away? Going to the station, Antoine not being able to find Quentin?

8. The reaction of the audience in spending this time watching the brothers, watching the scenery, watching their behaviour – the effect in understanding? Any insights into the characters and into twins?