Let Me Go

Presented as the opening film of last year’s Acid in Cannes, Laissez-moi (Let Me Go) belongs to a genre for the happy few: films starring Jeanne Balibar, which are usually dedicated to celebrating this actress whose singular charm has the power to suck in the fictions it inhabits. This first feature film is entirely coloured by Balibar, so much so that the adjectives that could be used to describe the way it is directed could also describe its leading actress: a delicate blend of sophistication, malice, a form of sought-after mystery, (...), and an anachronistic horizon openly embraced by the film – it takes place in 1997, a few months after the death of Lady Diana. From the very first shot, a beautiful floating movement that takes us right up to Claudine, a passenger on a bucolic little train criss-crossing the mountains, we are drawn to her, magnetised by her aura. What is more, she is irresistible, up there in that high- altitude hotel where she goes every week quite literally to take her life to new heights. (Laura Tuillier; Libération)