Memorable, crazy movie

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Roméo and Juliette are young actors in Paris. They meet at a club, and fall in love. He has a single mom living with her girlfriend. She has a middle of the road family. The couple has baby Adam but they notice that something is wrong. The doctors eventually discover that he has a brain tumor. They are devastated and they struggle through the difficult situation.For all the personal drama, there isn't as much tension as one expects. It isn't melodramatic but there are a couple of incidences where the actors feel like overacting. The drama is never that dramatic but it is a great little slice of life. There is no medical breakthrough or large world implication. The couple isn't doing anything over the top. It's simply life poured onto the big screen.

French actress, screenwriter and director Valérie Donzelli's second feature film which she co-wrote with her co-star Jérémie Elkaïm, is inspired by their own personal experiences and is a French production which was shot on various locations in France. The film was produced by Edouard Weil, premiered at the opening night of the International Critic's Week at the 64th Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and was the French submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards in 2012. It tells the story about Romeo and Juliette who after meeting at a nightclub in Paris, France falls in love and starts a promising relationship. Juliette becomes pregnant, gives birth to their son who is named Adam and their prospects seems very good, but when Adam becomes ill and is taken to a doctor who discovers a tumor in his brain, their lives are transformed and they are faced with an unpredictable and uncontrollable situation.Acutely and engagingly directed by Valérie Donzelli, this well-paced, compassionately narrated and deeply humane tale which is set in Paris, France 2003, draws an inventive portrayal of a young Parisian couple who when confronted with a devastating predicament decides to remain strong and battle it out in their own remarkable way. While notable for it's naturalistic urban milieu depictions, the fine cinematography by cinematographer and actor Sébastien Buchmann, the quick-witted dialog and the brilliant score which emphasizes the films poignant atmosphere, this character-driven and dialog-driven comedy-drama depicts two intertwining in-depth studies of character and examines themes like interpersonal relations, parenting, cancer, love and human courage.This somewhat adventurous, charmingly romantic and at times musical-like independent film, is impelled and reinforced by the heartfelt and involving acting performances by second-time filmmaker Valérie Donzelli, French actor Jérémie Elkhaïm and the fine supporting acting performances by French actor Frédéric Pierrot and César Desseix in his first feature film role. An emotionally moving and life-affirming love-story which gained, among other awards, the award for Best Actor Jérémie Elkaïm, Best Actress Valérie Donzelli and Best Film at the Gijón International Film Festival in 2011.

This film tells a story, lets you feel what it would really be like to live through these events. There's no detectable "message" nor "moral of the story". BUT even though the film itself doesn't lean that way, I couldn't help mulling over some larger social issues (and a few scenes in the film, although unremarked, contributed).The cost of preserving a human life was wrecked personal finances, losing ownership of an apartment, a good marriage, a couple careers, and several of what should have been the best years of a couple lives. (The film doesn't dwell on these things, but it does report them. A credit card gets cut up. They create a nice meal in their imaginations. An offhand remark reports the loss of the apartment. And so forth.) Was it worth it? And why was the burden laid almost exclusively on one small nuclear family rather than on a larger community? The state apparently paid for all the medical care (better than in the U.S.). But no state help was available for avoiding personal bankruptcy or for saving apartment ownership. Was that the best deployment of resources?(Also, unconnected to the child's sickness, the film mentions that both parents had considerable trouble finding work. Some career aspirations on both sides were dashed. And there's even a suggestion the situation was so bad that Juliette took work in a different town several hours away.)

This is an incredible movie. Just imagine: two young people are attracted to each other, live together happily until they realize the child they have had happens to suffer from a particularly malignant brain tumor, a fact abruptly plunging them into a terrible four-year ordeal, leading them to breakup because of the hardships inherent in the situation, only to..., some time later,... make a film out of this excruciating experience! And not only do they write the story and direct (at least the woman) but they play their own characters as well, carefully replicating a reality that almost destroyed them. How courageous, how daring! A move close to sheer madness... How on earth can one go through the pangs of such an unbearable ordeal... TWICE? And how the devil can one make such a luminous film, able to deal with such a risky subject without falling into the many traps it contains? And how can one manage to give people hope and confidence by talking about death during most of a film? Well, miracles exist, since Valérie Donzelli (director, writer, main actress, makeup artist and hair stylist!) and her former life companion Jérémie Elkaïm (co-writer, main actor) have done just that with "La guerre est déclarée", giving an example that such a feat is within the realms of possibility.They manage this achievement by immediately finding the right tone and by never falling out of tune afterward. A winning principle announced in the title "Declaration of War", for both the characters are seen fighting instead of crying and moaning. This does not mean they never express their suffering - how could they help it? - but it is the dynamics of their struggle that is put forward, not the apathy their grief and anxiety are likely to generate.Valérie Donzelli is to be given special credit for her inspired direction. Not only does she pour her heart and soul into the filming of this painful chronicle but she also proves imaginative and creative, making use of an amazing variety of registers, devices and techniques which wind up making this movie unique: incongruous gags including during the most dramatic times; classic documentary (the way the little boy is treated in turns in Marseilles, in Paris and in Villejuif); original montages; inspired use of musical pieces creating the unexpected but effective cohabitation of Vivaldi, Delerue and pop music; resort to musical comedy (with the characters occasionally singing their feelings); use of metaphor (Juliette's disjointed run through the hospital corridor). And those examples are only a sample of all the personal touches Valérie Donzelli brings to this exceptional work.Never indulging in pathos or sentimentality,"La guerre est déclarée" nevertheless contains very moving scenes or sequences, my personal favorite being the one in which the unfortunate couple, unable to find sleep on the night before their son's operation, tell each other their fears to best calm their fears.A great shock, but a salutary one, "La guerre est déclarée", both the sincere account of a personal drama and a talented work of art for all, is one of the year 2011's masterpieces.