Olivier, Olivier
France
Production Co.: Oliane Productions/Films A2/Canal Plus/Sofica Investimage 3/Centre National de la Cinématographie
Producers: Marie-Laure Reyre, Christian Ferry
Screenplay: Agnieszka Holland, Yves Lapointe, Regis Debray
Photography: Bernard Zitzermann
Editor: Isabelle Lorente
Sound editor: Gérard Hardy
Sound: Pierre Befve, François Groult
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Cast
Serge: François Cluzet
Elisabeth: Brigitte Roüan
Inspector Druot: Jean François Stévenin
Olivier: Grégoire Colin
Nadine: Marina Golovine
Marcel: Frédéric Quiring
Nadine as a child: Faye Gatteau
Olivier as a child: Emmanuel Morozof
Little Paul: Florian Billion
Babette as a child: Carole Lemerle
Cop: Jean-Bernard Josko
Neighbour: Lucrèce de La Chenardière
Grandmother: Madeleine Marie
Festivals: Venice (In Competition), Toronto, New York, London, 1992.
It's very hard to classify the latest film by Agnieszka Holland and hard to shake it off. A haunting, sometimes harrowing film about the mystery of family, it begins as a study of an unstable French provincial mother who so dotes on her 9-year-old son, Olivier, that it drives her husband into a rage. Then one day little Olivier rides off on his bicycle to take lunch with his ailing grandmother. He never returns. The ramifications are devastating... Six years later the detective on the case picks up a 15 years old hustler in Paris. Could he be Olivier? He seems to know things only Olivier could know. He returns to the country house and his provocative, enigmatic presence puts the family through some radical convulsions... The mystery is eventually solved, but Holland leaves many other riddles unresolved at the heart of this dysfunctional-family romance.
Part fairy-tale, part psychodrama, Olivier, Olivier is strong, unsettling stuff. Holland is a filmmaker who looks deep into the twisted heart of love and won't settle for easy answers. - David Ansen, Newsweek, 15/3/93
Like her one-time colleague Krysztof Kieœlowski's Double Life of Veronique (which was also scored to excellent effect by Zbigniew Preisner), Olivier, Olivier evokes a supernatural world of inexplicable affinities, fulfilled wishes, unseen powers, bizarre coincidences, and enigmatic patterns... It preys on your mind even when you know the mystery. - J. Hoberman, Village Voice, 2/3/93
