Cycle index

Ricky

dir. François Ozon / France, Italy 2009 / 90’

subtitles: Polish and English

Panorama $9.99, 12 Lotus, Beeswax, Blue Beard, Breathless, Collectress, Ecce Momo!, Hooked, I am Not Your Friend + I Will Not Be Your Friend, Katalin Varga, Machan, My Only Sunshine, My Sweet Shirin, North, Nymph, Ordinary People, Palermo Shooting, Parque vía, Rachel Getting Married, Ricky, Schottentor, Seraphine, Stella, The Northern Land, The Other One, The Rat Herb, The Visitor, The White Ribbon, Two Lines, Under the Tree, Winter Silence Section index

Cast

Alexandra Lamy, Arthur Peyret, Sergi López, Mélusine Mayance, Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat, André Wilms

Film description

François Ozon likes to surprise his audiences. His latest film Ricky offers an exceptional mixture of genres and excellently composed roles. Katie is a single mother employed at a factory, who lives in one of the many anonymous blocks. Her life changes when she meets Paco, falls in love with him, and becomes pregnant very soon. When the title child is born, their life is transformed for a while.

Ozon has proven many times that he feels at ease with many various film conventions. Ricky combines bitter social observation with a great dose of magic realism. The filmmaker juggles with styles, starting from the realist, para-documentary prologue and smoothly continuing on to the fairy-tale poetics. The story told retrospectively avoids sentimentalism, skilfully presenting the family drama and relationships between the characters. The wonderful performance by the two main actresses is noticeable - Alexandra Lamy as the mother and Mélusine Mayance who plays seven-year-old Lisa. They bring elements of psychological realism to the film. The director perfectly mastered all possible film tricks, but Ricky is something more than a skilful filmmaking magic show. This piece of art proves once again the maturity of this artist and his exceptional talent.

Samuel Nowak